


Watford Tales Part 2

by PeregrineBones



Series: Watford Tales [2]
Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-13 23:06:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 31,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9146110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeregrineBones/pseuds/PeregrineBones
Summary: This is Part Two of Watford Tales, an AU where Carry On has a different ending. The Mage is not killed, Ebb survives, the Humdrum is still at large and Simon still has his power. Simon, Baz, Penelope and Agatha all return to school for another term. Simon and Baz have to work out their relationship, deal with their friends, and try to fight the Mage and the Humdrum. A tale of love, friendship, romance, loyalty, courage and adventure. And magic. And first times. And vampires. And dragons. And flying in the snow. And destiny. A continuation of Part One.





	1. The Cave

**Baz**

I don’t like to admit it, even to myself, but there are some things I kind of like about being a vampire. Like now, hunting in the woods. The catacombs are depressing, but it’s better out here. With my fangs out, everything feels different. I’m more agile, stronger. I can leap from rock to rock with ease, move silently over the forest floor. I can hear the animals moving about in the woods, smell them. I sense the fine vibrations of their movements in my fangs. Even the cold, cold air feels all right. I am part of the cold, and the cold is part of me.

When my fangs are popped, I’m focused on the hunt, on the smell of blood. All the sad things that have happened to me, all the terrible things that could still come to pass, recede from my mind. It’s a break from being human. Sometimes that’s a relief.

Daphne, my stepmother, gets me this black silk ski underwear from a posh outdoor shop in London and it’s great for moving around easily in the woods. There’s a limestone cave nearby where I go to shed the rest of my clothes and hide them. It has a dry sandy floor. I’ve slept out there in a pinch, but this afternoon, I’m trying to get what I need and get back to school before the drawbridge goes up.

I see a deer, off in the distance, but I hate to take any deer unless I really need to. They’re so beautiful. I get two rabbits and a couple of squirrels and that’s as much as I can drink, the blood, hot and delicious in my mouth, then warm and solid in my belly. Sated, at least for today, I head back to the cave to get my clothes. I’m starting to wonder what Simon is up to. “ _Aleister Almighty_ ,” I think to myself. “ _I’m just going from one hunger to the next_.”

I smell him first, the sharp, green wood aroma of him, the hospital scent of the school soap. He must have just showered. And then I see him hunkered down in the mouth of the cave, sitting in the snow. Snow in the snow. He grins when he sees me. The sun is low among the trees, the light is orange on the white ground. The trees cast long, deep blue shadows. We only have about twenty minutes and then the bridge will be drawn.

“Snow,” I hiss at him. He just grimaces at me. “Simon,” I correct. “What are you doing out here?” I’m not really unhappy to see him. He looks dead sexy, sitting there in the low light.

He shrugs, nonchalantly. “Came to find you,” he says. He’s only wearing his school jacket, as he ruined his coat, that night he flew to London.

“Aren’t you cold?” I ask.

He shrugs again. “What about you?” he asks gesturing towards my clothes. “What’re you wearing anyway?”

“It’s long underwear,” I say, feeling a bit foolish. “Good for hunting.” I duck into the cave to get the rest of my stuff and Simon’s right behind me. He shoves his shoulder against mine, looking into my eyes. He smiles and then he’s leaning into me, pushing me against the rough stone wall, his warm, soft mouth on mine, his tongue reaching for me hungrily. The tiny space of the cave fills with the smell of sticky green smoke. It’s breathtaking. He’s breathtaking. My fingers go and twine in those bronze curls, and I’m kissing him back and melting into his heat, sucking in his breath.

“Good for hunting and…..being hot,” he says laughing as he runs his hands over the silk fabric of my back and down towards my arse. He grabs hold and pulls me close into him. All the blood I just drank is warming me from the inside, giving me ballast, like I can take whatever he can dish out. My hips push forward and lock onto his, and I hear his breath hitch.

“We’ve got to get back,” I protest weakly. “The drawbridge is going to go up and we’ll be stuck out here all night.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, kissing me harder, leaning in. He feels so good. Everything feels so good.

“Think about it Simon,” I say. “All night out here. No food.”

He takes a hand and rakes my hair back off my forehead. “I have a way back in,” he says. He reaches into his jacket pocket and gets out a large, old fashioned iron key. There's a rabbit’s head stamped in the metal at one end, where the ring would normally be. It’s an odd, rough looking thing. I take it from him and examine it closely. “What is this?” I ask.

“I’ve had it since our sixth year,” he says. “I found it as part of the quest for the six white hares.”

I remember that. Simon was obsessed with rabbits that year, and he kept bugging me about it, casting around for information, for clues. It ended with Simon in a life or death battle with some ferocious giant white hare. I had never really gotten the whole story, but it was typical Simon.

“Where does it go?” I ask.

“There’s a tunnel under the moat,” he says. “It’s all decorated with these rabbit mosaics made of tile. This key unlocks the door that leads to it.”

“So we have…?”

“All….”He pushes me back up against the wall. “The time….” He kisses my forehead, right at the hairline “In the world.” He kisses down and down, until he’s tonguing my nipple through the thin silk fabric of my black long sleeved shirt, biting, leaving a wet spot, making me gasp, making me forget about everything but wanting him. He grins up at me, for a moment. “I like this outfit,” he says. Then he leaves my nipple and travels down my chest and my belly, and then he’s tonguing my cock where it’s pressed up against the taught silk. He’s on his knees in front of me, licking, trying to get his mouth around me through the fabric, his hands are rubbing the backs of my thighs, slithering up and down over the silky material. His mouth is making a wet slapping sound as he sucks at the silk. I don’t know what to do with my hands, and finally I just let them rest lightly on the top of his head. I can hear my breath, ragged and fast echoing off the stony walls of the cave. And then, just when I think it can’t get any better, Simon pulls his face away and looks up at me. He slides his hands under the elastic waistband of my silk pants and pulls them down over my hips until they’re a black puddle around my ankles.

“Light a light,” he says hoarsely.

“What?”

“Light a light,” he says again. “Your blue fire. I want to see.”

And so I do. I bring a flame and then give it a nudge so it’s hovering right above us. We’re both staring at my cock, which looks huge and long in the eerie blue light. I see his nostrils flare, then his tongue darts out and he’s licking up the shaft and taking the head in his mouth, his mouth which is soft and warm and wet, with those thick full lips, and I close my eyes as the pleasure of it overtakes me.

**Simon**

I think I weirded Baz out a bit when I asked him to make a light but I wanted to see. I wanted to see him up close. His cock is longer than mine, and skinnier (which makes sense, everything on Baz is long and skinny). His balls, hanging out behind it are just balls and I like the musky animal smell of his crotch. When I put my mouth on his cock he closes his eyes and I can tell how much he likes it by the gaspy breathy sounds he’s making. I can’t possibly take all of him in, so I wrap a hand around the base, and suck a little bit. I’m pretty turned on myself, but I’m not sure what to do about it. It’s weird being so far below him. He seems very far away. I grab onto his hips and pull him in and suck harder. He starts thrusting a little into my mouth. I take a bit more of him in and squeeze harder around the base. He makes a high pitched moan and then he's grabbbing at my hair and I feel his cock squirting in my mouth and taste the salty, spunky taste of him.

Baz kind of slumps against the wall. I pull him down so he’s lying on top of me and I really, really want to hold him. I want my arms around him. He’s kissing me and laughing the way he does when he feels good. I want him. I want him to make me come. I roll my hips so they’re grinding into him, and I push his hand down toward my crotch. I feel the impatient growl low in my throat. He works his hand under my belt and into my pants, then he‘s stroking me. He knows what to do. Feathery teasing touches that make me squirm and buck my hips against him, because I want more, then long slow satisfying strokes and finally he’s rubbing me hard and pushing against me. I wrap my legs around him, pushing back, and it all feels so good and I’m coming into his hand.

After a few minutes Baz reaches over and feels around until he finds his cloak which he throws over the two of us. He wafts the blue flame over until it’s sitting on a stone ledge beside us. He passes his hand over it a few times so that it turns from blue to orange, and warmer, like a campfire. We’re wedged together in the small space on the floor of the tall narrow cave. There’s just room for the two of us on the sandy floor between the walls of rock.

“I’m in your vampire lair,” I say, looking around. I’ve known about this cave for years, known that Baz uses it as a kind of base when he hunts in the woods, but this is the first time I’ve ever been inside.

He holds me close, like he’s never going to let me go. “I don’t even know why you want this,” he says quietly into my hair.

I laugh at that. “I think it’s kind of obvious,” I say. I let my fingers slide up, through his silky black hair and push it back off his forehead. That makes me remember something and I give his temple a kiss.

“That,” I say, “Is from your mother.”

“What?” he asks. He sounds sleepy, relaxed. “What are you even talking about?”

“Your mother. She kissed me right here,” and I put a finger to his temple.”The night she came to our room. She told me to give it to you. I just remembered.”

“My mother?” he asks. “She kissed you?”

“Yeah,” I say. “But it was for you.”

He’s quiet, looking at the flames, holding me. He gives a long shuddering sigh. “I still miss her,” he says at last, like it’s something he’s embarrassed about.

“That’s okay,” I say. “At least you still remember her. At least you have someone to miss.” _Not like me,_ I think. _I have no one at all._

“I still haven’t avenged her death,” he says.

 _I know what that means,_ I think. _That means killing the Mage._

“You shouldn’t have stopped me,” he says quietly, into the fire. “That night in the tower. You should have let me at him.”

“No,” I say now. “I did the right thing.”

“We’d be in a better position, now,” he says. “If he was dead, we’d have a better shot at the Humdrum.” Normally this would turn into a fight but for some reason, it isn’t. We’re both too relaxed, I suppose.

“No,” I say again. He has a point, but I’m sure about this. “You’ve never bitten a person, Baz. That’s important. That’s…...an achievement. I’m glad you didn’t throw that away on him.”

He’s staring at the flames, and his arms are like steel bands around me. “I still have to kill him,” he says at last. “My mother came from behind the veil. That’s what she wanted me to do.”

“She said avenge, not kill.”

“Same difference,” he says. He’s probably right about that.

“What if he really is my dad?” I ask quietly. “The Mage? Ebb thinks he could be.”

“That would complicate things,” he says. “But it wouldn’t change them.”

I kiss his mouth, long and deep. I can still taste the blood, from the hunt, faintly on his breath. I like this so much, all of it. I don’t want anything to come between us.

“What are you going to do, Simon?” he asks now. “When the time comes? What do you really want?”

I want Baz. I want Baz and me together, on the same side, helping each other, holding each other. But I don’t know how to tell him this.

“I want the Mage stopped,” I say now. “But I don’t necessarily want him dead.”

“So you’re not going to kill him?”

I shrug. “I don’t know, Baz,” I say. “I’ll kill him if I have to. If that’s what it takes to stop him. But I don’t want to.”

“And if I kill him?”

I look in his eyes, a long moment. They look almost black in the low light. “That’s between you and him, I suppose.”

“You won’t try to stop me?”

“I don’t like killing,” I say.

I’m afraid he’s just going to get up and walk away from me, but he doesn’t. He takes a hand and starts running his fingers through my hair, then gently massaging my scalp. I sigh and let my head fall against his shoulder.

“I’ve killed,” I say at last. “Goblins. That dragon first year. The great white hare. I know how to kill. I know sometimes it’s necessary. But I still don’t like it.”

“I kill every day,” he says quietly.

“That’s animals,” I say. “That’s eating. Killing a person is different.”

“My mother told me to kill him,” he says.

“Bring her peace,” I say, remembering Natasha Grimm Pitch, her chilly translucent presence, her cold, imperious voice. “She said bring her peace. Not kill. Maybe there’s another way.”

“Maybe,” he says. I hear the doubt in his voice, but I don’t know what to do about it.

“She didn’t say kill, Baz. I was there. She never said kill.”

“Simon,” he says, and his face looks sad in the firelight. “You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.”

*********

**Baz**

Simon has no idea what he’s talking about. Give me peace means avenge my death. That means kill. We’re Pitches. We don’t fuck around.

We don’t ignore a direct order from beyond the veil.

This is deep, deeper even than the love I feel for Simon. Which at the moment is pretty profound. Which I guess is why I don’t just get up and walk away from him. It’s clear that we’re doomed. It’s been clear from the start. We’ve never been standing anywhere but on the deck of the Titanic.

If I could I would freeze time. The firelight playing on Simon’s curls. His arms around me. Both of us sated and warm and safe. But I know it can’t last. When the time comes, I’m going to have to kill the Mage and Simon is going to try to stop me and at least one of the three of us is going to die.

I reach for his mouth and he kisses me back. He smiles down at me uncertainly. I love him so much it makes my chest ache. Am I a bad person that I want to get as much of him as I can, before the end?

“Hungry?” I ask. I can guess the answer to this one.

“Yeah,” he says. He kisses my ear, then pulls a leaf out of my hair.

“If we hurry we’ll make dinner,” I say.

 

**********

  
Making our way back through the woods it’s dark, and I call a blue flame to light the way. We’re almost at the moat when I hear a mewling sound coming from a clump of bushes. I put a hand on Simon’s arm and then he hears it too. I step forward cautiously, following the sound.

I pull back some branches and there’s an ungainly creature sitting on a rock, crying piteously, faintly. It’s about the size of a chicken and looks like a cross between an eagle and a dragon. It’s holding one if it’s black leathery wings at an odd angle. When I part the bushes it hisses at me fiercely.

Simon is looking over my shoulder. “What is it?” he breathes.

“A gwythaint. It’s just a baby.”

“It’s hurt,” he says, reaching out a hand.

“Careful,” I warn as the baby gwythaint hisses and slashes at him with it’s beak.“They’re fierce.”

Simon quickly withdraws his hand and sucks on his fingers. My nose twitches, just for a moment, as I smell his blood, but I’ve just hunted and I think I’ll be okay. 

“What’s a gwythaint?” he asks.

“They’re large birdlike creatures that live in the mountains. I’ve never heard of one around here though. It’s strange. This isn’t their natural environment. And he’s too young to be left on his own. Where’s his mother?” I look around but see no sign of a mother gwythaint. Which is a good thing. I’m sure if she was around and thought we were threatening her baby we wouldn’t survive.

This baby looks terrible. It’s looking at us through a cloudy eye. Its nose is running, it’s shivering and it’s holding that broken wing at a funny angle. It clearly won’t survive the night if we leave it out here.

“We should take it back with us,” Simon says.

"Maybe,” I say. “Or maybe not. Gwythaints aren’t really nice creatures, Simon. They live in aeries, way up in the mountains. They're the natural enemies of the dragons. And they’ve been known to take human children for food. This one shouldn’t be here. Something's amiss.”

In the end though, neither of us has the heart to leave the creature to freeze to death. I spell its vicious beak shut with a “ _ **Shut your mouth or I’ll shut it for you**_ ” and wrap it in my cloak. We bring it to Ebb’s barn.

Ebb’s only been back for about a week and she’s ridiculously glad to see Simon. She’s pretty lukewarm to me, but I don’t give a shit. When we show her the gwythaint, however, she turns pale.

“They ain’t nice birds, Simon,” she says. “And they ain’t supposed to be around here either.”

She reluctantly takes it and feeds it some goats milk and porridge that she has in a rusty fridge in her living quarters which are really just a corner of the barn. At first it hisses at her and tries to bite her fingers, but Ebb is nothing if not patient with animals and after about half an hour she’s talking to it and petting it, and I can see that we’re going to be able to leave it with her.

Crowley! A gwythaint. They’re vicious. And they understand human speech. Not really the kind of animal you want to keep around. And what is it doing at Watford? I should never have let Simon talk me into bringing it back.

Dinner’s long over by the time we get back. The dining hall is abandoned except for Bunce who is waiting for us, looking worried. I break into the kitchen and get us some bread and cheese and oranges. We tell Penny about the gwythaint but she’s as flummoxed as I am.

Bunce would talk all night. Since she’s been back she’s been throwing herself into the Mage’s papers with a vengeance as I knew she would. The deeper we delve the darker the magick. We have a strategy meeting planned for tomorrow with Dev and Niall and Agatha.

At last we get away and we’re crossing the yard to Mummer’s House together. It still feels weird to be doing things with Simon in public, ordinary stupid things like eating or walking to class together. I feel as if every one can see that there’s something between us, and I never quite know what to do with my hands.

Up in our room, though we’re fine. I’m really starting to like this, just Simon and me together, doing everyday things. I take a shower and do my teeth. I have an elaborate dental hygiene ritual. I don’t like the taste of old blood in my mouth. Also, I figure I need my teeth, more than most people. When I get out of the bathroom Simon is studying on his bed. I grab my Spellkasting homework, and spoon in beside him and we actually both get some work done for a couple of hours. At one point, Simon has his head against my chest and he looks up at me and says, “I can barely hear your heartbeat.”

“Vampire physiology, “ I say. “It’s there, just slow. My pulse hardly ever goes above forty. Coach Mac just thinks I’m in really, really good shape.”

“Wicked,” he says with a grin.

I drift off to the sound of his hot blood, rushing through his veins, and I must really love him, because instead of tempting me, it just soothes me to sleep, like a lullabye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget to check out Watford Tales Part 1 http://archiveofourown.org/works/8794180/chapters/20161426. Thanks for reading and please comment. I love feedback! PB


	2. The Nursery

**Simon**

It’s been two weeks since Premal’s funeral. Two weeks since Penny’s been back. It’s great to have her back but it’s kind of scary too. I’ve never seen Penny like this. She’s sad. And angry. And….. quiet. Sometimes I catch her staring off into space and the other day after Politckal Science I found her crying in the hall. I guess it’s understandable. Her brother just died after all. Was killed. Murdered. But I’m used to leaning on Penny in a certain way. I’m used to my problems being bigger than hers.(Now I guess _she_ kind of needs _me._ )

Sometimes her sadness is so strong, it’s palpable. She’s been spending every spare minute with the Mage’s papers. Baz just handed them over to her when she got back. It’s obvious that she needs the distraction.

Agatha is back with us as well, even though she mostly tries to ignore us. But I know now that she’s on our side, and I know she’s there in a pinch. Strategy and plotting aren’t really her thing. That’s okay. We have Penny and Baz for that. They love to strategize. When they really get going the room practically hums with their excitement.

Things are a little more comfortable with Dev and Niall now, as well. I’m getting used to hanging out with them. They can be funny sometimes. And I can see why Baz wants them around. The three of them have this kind of fierce loyalty to each other. It reminds me of Penny and me.

I’ve been going down to the barn every afternoon, to help Ebb with chores and just kind of check up on her. She seems more frail and a bit trembly, since she’s been back, but she insists she’s fine. When I get there this afternoon the baby gwythaint is still alive. She’s rigged up a box for it by the stove. It’s all hunched down in a corner, shivering and squawking feebly.

“He might not make it, Simon,” she says when she sees me looking at the pathetic scrawny bundle.

“Can I feed him?” I ask.

I hold him in my lap wrapped in a towel and I get some of the disgusting mix of egg, curdled goats milk and oats that Ebb has fixed up for him down his gullet. He’s too weak to fight me much. Ebb looks on approvingly. The little goat, the one that's always begging off me, comes over and starts butting my leg, trying to get at the gwythaint's food. Ebb shoos it away.

“He likes you Simon,” she says. “That’s more than he’s eaten all day.” He falls asleep in my lap, with his scrawny head against my chest. He’s such a weird little creature. Kind of half bird, half reptile. Most of his skin is black and leathery but there are downy feathers on the top of his head and long blue black feathers along the edges of his wings. His beak is black, hooked and vicious looking. It’s covered with scales. Ebb has taped a splint to his broken wing. He’s so skinny that I can see his heart beating in his chest about 200 times a minute. Sort of the opposite of Baz. When I lay him down in his box he doesn’t wake up. I wonder if that’s because he’s peacefully sleeping or because he’s going to die. I know he’s making Baz and Ebb nervous, and they know better about this kind of thing than I do, but I can’t help rooting for him.

After helping Ebb with the chores, I hurry back up to the castle. I’ve an idea I want to try, and if it works out it could be good. I have a rabbit key in my pocket, not the one to the tunnel under the moat. A different one.

I have six keys from that quest. Some have been useful, like the tunnel one, some not so much. Several lead to secret compartments with paintings of rabbits in them, one leads to a scary dark hole in the basement next to the wine cellar that I’ve never had much of an inclination to explore.The one I’m carrying now is the cutest one. It’s got a white enamel ring with white enamel bunny ears sticking out of it. The inside of the bunny ears are painted pale pink. It’s the key to the nursery.

The problem is the door to the nursery disappeared after the vampire attack and it doesn’t like to show itself. It’s in the Weeping Tower, two stories down from the headmaster’s office. It’s normally a busy hallway, full of teacher’s offices and classrooms. I get there after the teachers have left for the day and luckily no one’s around.

I let my magic come, and I focus on what I need. I need to find the nursery door. I open my eyes and there it is, set in the stone wall in front of me. A heavy old oak door, carved with bunnies and deer and foxes, with deep scratch marks in it from the day the vampires attacked.

The key fits perfectly, and the door swings open, smooth as magic.

Last time I was here it was a shambles from the battle with the great white hare; furniture overturned, the curtains singed, rabbit blood everywhere. Someone has come in and cleaned up, or the room has cleaned itself, but the faint smell of blood and smoke lingers. Blood and Smoke. Like Baz and me.

This room is where his mother died. This room is where he was turned.

The great white hare is back up on the ceiling, asleep. I can hear the faintest rustle coming from it, as if it’s almost alive but not quite. A large drop of blood glistens, deep red, in the center of it’s chest. I put that there.

The curtains are drawn, throwing the circular room into semi-darkness. There’s a soft carpet on the floor, futons and cushions in a ring, toys and books arranged on low shelves under large windows. There’s a cold stone fireplace and a low table beside it surrounded by child sized chairs. There’s a small kitchen in a corner with a sink and a fridge, cups and bowls on low shelves. There’s the ceiling above, painted with stars, birds and tree branches, with the creepy, bloody, enchanted rabbit for a moon.

It’s a perfect place for us to meet.

As long as Baz isn’t too weirded out.

*********

**Baz**

When Simon tells me his plan I am completely weirded out.

I mean, I don’t really like meeting in our room in Mummer’s Hall either. It’s too small, for one thing, and it’s our private place now, Simon’s and mine. We need a better place to meet. But in a school full of secret rooms and passages, why did he have to choose that particular one? The one where my mother died. There are secret towers. There are hidden floors.

He comes and finds me after football, and he wants to take me right over there. It’s a gray chilly afternoon. January thaw. The snow is soft and dirty and the clouds are scudding low across the horizon like wisps of smoke.

I don’t really want to go back to the nursery. Except I do. I haven’t been there since that day. I was only five. I remember it so vividly - but it’s like a film I saw, not something I actually lived. I was really little. I remember what it felt like - to be that small. To sit on my mother’s lap. To reach up for her rough hand.

She’s gone now.

It’s like there’s this big hole where she was. She was soft and her hands were rough (fire turner’s hands) and she sang to me and she was full of magic. She smelled of clove drops and even though I was only five she talked to me, she told me things. She taught me how to bring fire and how to wrap your mind around a spell to make it work. She told me about her mother and her grandfather and all the magicians in her family going back to a magickal castle that we all came from, on the Blue Nile River, centuries ago. She taught me that the flame would never burn me if I loved it enough. She loved me and she taught me how to love magic.

So I go with Simon to the nursery. Because I want to see it and I don’t want to see it.

It’s almost dinner time by the time we get up there and the hall is deserted. Simon just closes his eyes and his magic comes and there’s a door where there was none. An oak door, with the animals carved in. I remember it. He takes out this key with cute bunny ears and puts it in the lock and turns it. The door swings open.

Once inside it’s shockingly familiar. The shelves under the windows, full of toys (I liked the trains best). The futons in a ring, the table where we’d have our tea. The cribs for the babies were off in the adjoining room.

Simon looks over at me uncertainly “All right?” he asks.

I sigh, but strangely it is all right. It was 13 years ago. Nothing can change it. It’s oddly comforting to be back where it all happened. I breathe in the faint smell of clay and chalk and blood and smoke. I once felt so safe here. And then suddenly I wasn’t safe at all.

I sit down on one of the futons, and I don’t realize I’m crying until Simon comes over and wipes a tear from my cheek. He sits down next to me and puts his arms around me and I let him hold me while I cry.

“I shouldn’t have brought you here,” he whispers.

“No…. I…. it’s all right,” I say and I wipe away the tears. “It’s…. We can use this for meetings if you want.” He looks at me like he doesn’t believe me. I get up and give him a hand and pull him up.

“I’m an idiot,” he says

“It was all a long time ago. I....I think I like being back. I feel closer to her here. I......just got overwhelmed for a minute but I’m all right now.” I pull him in close and kiss him. “Let’s get dinner,” I say. “We can bring the others back here later for our meeting if you like.”

“All right,” he says and he’s smiling at me. His eyes are very blue, and his lips are very red, and I kiss him again. And again. His arms go around me and and hold me close and he’s so warm, the warmest thing I’ve ever known. He’s so alive. I hear the blood rushing through his veins, breathe in his boy smell of sweat and school soap and smoky magic. Here, in the room where my mother killed, where the human life I was supposed to have was taken from me, I am kissing Simon Snow and I feel alive. Beautifully, miraculously alive.

“It’s a bit devious,” he says pulling back.

“What?”

“Snogging in the room where your mother was killed.”

I give him an appropriately devious grin. I have no idea how to explain what this means to me, and I’m not going to try.

“You don’t mind?” he asks, looking at me searchingly with those blue eyes.

“No,” I say. “I don’t mind.” And I bend to kiss his warm, warm mouth again.

We’re almost too late for dinner.

**********

**Simon**

After dinner Penny comes back to our room with us. We gather up all the books and  papers that Baz got from the Mage's room. Penny shrinks the chalkboard using _**Cute as a Button,**_ which is a ridiculously tricky spell. You have to get the volume of your voice just right. Too soft and you won’t get much shrinkage at all. Too loud and you can turn the object you are trying to shrink microscopic. Penny gets the chalkboard down to the size of a cell phone, wraps it in one of Baz’s old fashioned handkerchiefs and slips it into her coat pocket.

Outside again it’s freezing. I really need to get a new coat. I’ve been making do with my school jacket but it isn’t nearly warm enough. I don’t really have the money, though. The Mage always gave me an allowance, but that’s gone now, obviously. Penny thinks I should go to Possibelf and ask about it, but I don’t really think it’s a great idea to draw attention to my special relationship with the Mage right now.

Baz puts his scarf around my neck, which is this super soft cashmere thing his step mother got him for Christmas. Before the big fight. I like the way it smells. Like Baz.

“I’m going to the catacombs first,” he says. “Go fetch the others and I’ll meet you up at the nursery.” He turns and is gone so fast I don’t have time to argue.

Penny and I go to the library to collect Dev and Niall and then Penny runs up to the third floor of the Cloisters to get Agatha while we three boys blow steam and stomp our feet in the frosty clear night air. I lead everyone over to the Weeping Tower and at last we’re all settled in the nursery, seated on the futons arranged around the middle. Then Baz shows up and lights a fire in the long unused fireplace and the meeting can begin.

There have been two Coven meetings and the last one was just last night. Niall was there (he took the train this time) and he starts out by telling us what happened.

“Everyone’s pretty frustrated,” he says. “There are no real leads on Premal’s murder. The expedition from up north is back. They found the Mage’s hunting lodge but it was abandoned. No clues there, though they used every spell they could think of to strip the place down. Oh and your parents were there,” he says, turning to Penny. “It looks like your mum is going to be elected headmistress.”

“I know” said Penny. “I talked to her this morning.”

“Talked to her?” asks Dev.

“Yeah.…..I have a phone,” says Penny. “My mum charmed it so it works in here.” She has big circles under her eyes like she’s not sleeping well.

“Hmmph” snorts Niall. “Our new headmistress is already breaking the rules.”

“Could be useful though,” points out Dev.

“True,” says Niall, approvingly. “It’s pretty badass.”

All this time Agatha is sitting there with her face in a book. Like she wishes she were somewhere else. She’s chewing on a strand of her lovely blond hair nervously. I’m so happy she agreed to come I don’t even mind her shitty attitude. I figure it’s just her way of coping. I know all this stuff makes her really anxious, but I don’t care. She’s shown that when the chips are down she can come through for us. She’s here and that’s something. That’s a lot.

“What about the vampires?” asks Baz now. “Any news on them?”

“There’s a large camp down south, on the coast,” says Niall. “They’ve got a leader, a bloke named Gideon Petrokov. There’s talk of trying to reach out, to negotiate with them. Your aunt’s leading that effort,” Niall says, looking at Baz. “I guess she’s got some kind of connections?” Baz just nods tightly. “Anyway, then it went into committee so I don’t know what the plan is. But everyone seems really worried about it. They think maybe they’ve all ready joined with the Mage.”

“I wonder why they’re gathering in the south,” says Penny thoughtfully. “Do you think maybe the Mage is hiding out near the coast?”

“He liked the sea,” I say half to myself, thinking out loud.

Suddenly everyone’s looking at me (even Agatha looks up from her book) and I feel self conscious. “He used to talk about it sometimes,” I mumble looking down. I shrug. “Primal power of the waves, ocean magic, stuff like that.”

“What did he say about vampires?” asks Baz quietly, his grey eyes on me.

I try to think back. The Mage would lecture me, sometimes for hours, about his beliefs. About magic. About my place in it all. About how I was the Chosen One, something the world of mages had never seen, the great hope for the new era. It always made me really uncomfortable. It always made me feel like a fake.

Sometimes he’d talk about other creatures. Werewolves, centaurs, fauns. How we had to work to include them in the magickal world. How we could learn from their magic. “It’s all about culture, Simon,” he used to say. “We can evolve our culture to include their magic. And in the end, we’ll be stronger for it.” He never said much about vampires though. They didn’t seem to be part of his grand scheme for inclusion.

“He never really talked about it,” I say at last.

“He let some of them live, though,” says Penny thoughtfully. I can see the wheels turning in her head, the thoughts forming behind her eyes. “Those vampires in Covent Garden. How come they’re alive?” She’s standing at the chalkboard, which has been magicked back to it’s original size. She turns to it and writes, _Vampires_ with a question mark in the _Things We Don’t Know_ column.

“Vampires in Covent Garden?” asks Niall sharply. We’ve kind of left out that part of the story. It’s a little too close to “Oh, and by the way, your best mate is a vampire.”

“Yeah, I’d avoid that area late at night if I were you,” says Baz and a look passes between them. _He all ready knows,_ I think. _Or he suspects._ It makes sense. Niall spends a lot of time with Baz. Almost as much as I do. And he doesn’t miss much.

Baz stands and goes over to the window and looks out. His face is turned to the side and I can see his profile, the high forehead, the long nose. His back is hunched slightly, the way it gets when he’s upset. It makes him look smaller, vulnerable. Less like a vampire, more like just a boy.

I realize in that moment that I love him. This thought has been hovering around the edges of my brain for days, for weeks. The thought I haven’t dared to think. But there it is. And I can’t help myself. I get up and go over to the window and stand beside him, not touching, but close enough so that he can feel my warmth. My magic wants to come to the surface. I can feel it in the back of my throat, the way I do when I get emotional, and I have to swallow it down. I look out the window. It’s a cold, clear night. The moon is riding high in the sky, making the snow shine like silver.

“I am not going into that vampire bar,” says Agatha into the silence. “No matter what.”

And so we tell them about our night at Covent Garden and our conversation with Nicodemus, leaving out the part that Baz is a vampire. They don’t ask the obvious question, of why would you ever go in there in the first place unless you were one of them. But maybe they don’t have to ask it because they all ready know.

It’s kind of the way of these old blood types anyway. All the stuff unsaid. _I’m gay, I’m a vampire._ Fine, let’s just not let it interfere with the polo game or whatever.

I’m more of a talker.

Penny’s writing a lot of unhelpful stuff on the chalkboard. Mostly questions and sentence fragments. The _What We Don’t Know_ column is getting really long. _Nicodemus? Connection to the Mage?_ And _Covent Garden Vampires?_

Most of the rest of the meeting is taken up going over all of Penny and Baz’s notes from the papers Baz found in the Mage’s office. They’ve both been going through them compulsively, every chance they get. There’s a lot of details about the kind of Black Magick he was into, but no clue as to where he might be or what he’s planning to do next. No clue as to why he killed Premal. Assuming it was him.

I fill everyone in on my own fruitless search. I’ve got six rabbit keys from sixth year, when I was tracking down the great white hare, that bastard rabbit snoozing above our heads. I’ve opened all the doors, but no clues, no hidden diary of the Mage or whatever that would lead us on to something more tangible. We have a long meandering discussion about the gwythaint, but nobody has any idea why there would be a baby gwythaint in the Wavering Woods, or if he has any connection to the Mage. We agree to do some research on gwythaints, for whatever that’s worth. Not much probably. That baby’s probably going to die anyway. He looked pretty bad this afternoon. For some reason that makes me sad.

We finish up discussing the Magickal Registry. Penny got the code out of her dad when she was home by telling him she was working on an honors project for Magickal History. So we decide that Penny and Baz and I will try going there this weekend, and try to find out what we can. I still don’t see how that’s going to help us, but they have a point. It’s something to do.

Then Agatha closes her book with a snap. “I’m going to bed,” she announces.

“I’ll go with you,” says Penny. And the two girls are gone out the oak door.

After they leave Niall produces yet another bottle of vodka he’s nicked from his parents and Dev has a bottle of Ribena. We drink it out of these little ceramic blue cups with stars on them that we find on the low shelves by the table. It’s a disgusting mixture, but no one else seems to notice.

I’ve never drunk much. I’ve never wanted to, and I’m still not sure what I think of it. I’m not sure I like having my wits dulled, especially right now. It probably wouldn’t be a great idea to try to fight the Humdrum when I’m smashed. The others all seem to regard alcohol as an essential supply, like water or toilet paper. I take a few sips to be polite. The others are putting it away steadily. Baz is still upset, which I think is making him drink more. Maybe not. I don’t know. I’m just guessing.

I’d really just like to be alone with him right now.

After his second drink Dev just wants to talk about Agatha. About how beautiful she is. About how to ask her to the Winter Ball which is coming up. I really don’t mind if he asks her out but I don’t want to talk about it endlessly, either. The past three years she’s gone to the Winter Ball with me.

Niall is trying to get up the nerve to ask out that beautiful sixth year girl, Rowan. She’s very popular and a bit intimidating. Confident, like she can tell a lot of blokes like her. Penny asked around for Niall and no one’s asked her to the ball yet, but he’s going to have to ask her soon.

Baz just sits there getting steadily drunker and I’m mostly bored. At last the vodka and Ribena are finished and it’s time to go. Outside the cold is intense. We say goodnight to Dev and Niall at their dorm and head to Mummer’s Hall. When we get into the shadowy alcove in the entryway I sort of can’t stand it anymore and I shove Baz against the rough stones of the wall and start kissing him, which luckily he doesn’t seem to mind.

Neither of us notice Fiona in the shadows until she lights a cigarette. The click of the lighter startles us both and we pull apart. I see her face for a moment in the flame, then it goes out and she recedes into the shadows again. The end of her cigarette glows in the darkness as she inhales.

“Basilton,” she says, and blows a cloud of smoke into the frosty air.

Baz brings a flame which throws Fiona’s face into relief. She looks haggard in the blue light. “Hello Fiona,” he says drunkenly and starts to giggle.

She looks at him sharply. “Are you drunk?” she asks.

"Maybe,” he says. “Perhaps.”

“Well sober up, boy-o. I have a job for you.” She hasn’t acknowledged me at all. Hasn’t even looked at me.

“A job,” Baz says. “That’s interesting. Something heroic, I hope? Something dangerous? Something spectacularly heroic and dangerous that will make my name a household word? Something only I can do, that would cause you to come fetch me in the middle of the night? What could that possibly be? Any ideas, Simon?”

I have an idea but I keep my mouth shut. This is not something I want to do.

“Come on Baz,” says Fiona. “We need to get this done before first light.”

“Something to be done before first light. Something that only I can do. Might you perhaps want me to talk to the undead?” Suddenly, he turns his head and vomits, rather spectacularly, into the snow. I’m so startled by this I don’t know what to do. All the years I’ve lived with Baz I’ve never seen him throw up. The pile of sick looks purple in the bright snow, from the Ribena, I guess.

Fiona wrinkles her nose. “Better now?” she asks, after a moment.

He wipes his mouth with the back of his sleeve and nods. “Good,” she says. “Come on.” and she starts striding across the snowy moonlit yard, towards the moat. She’s long and angular, Fiona is. Dressed all in black. Black leggings and black boots and a black hoodie. She must be freezing. I know I am. Baz shrugs at me and starts to follow her. I am right behind him.

Fiona turns and looks at me for the first time. “You can’t come,” she says.

I feel my magic pooling in the back of my throat and spreading across my skin. Fiona notices it at once. I see her head jerk up and she’s staring right at me, her eyes growing wide. “Try to stop me,” I growl.

“Simon,” says Baz.

“Not arguing about this.”

“It’s going to be dangerous.”

“I know,” I say. “That’s why I’m going with you.”

“Baz,” says Fiona. “He can’t come. It’s Coven business.”

“Either we both go, or neither of us goes,” I say to Fiona. “You choose.”

We stand there for a long moment in the moonlight. I don’t know what is going to happen but I know I am not going to let Baz go into a vampire camp to negotiate without me. That just seems so obvious, I don’t have to think about it at all.

“Fine,” says Fiona at last. She drops her cigarette and stamps it out, then turns and starts walking to the moat. She has a key to the boathouse, like Niall did, and we use that tunnel to get out. When we get out the other side there is a small Citroen parked in the grass outside the boathouse. Nicodemus is sitting in the driver’s seat.

He looks at me and smirks. I really, really want to punch him in the mouth, but instead I follow Baz into the back of the Citroen. I put my arms around Baz’s chest and hold him to me and he’s asleep almost instantly with his head against my shoulder. I bury my nose in his hair and inhale the scent of him, bergamot and cedar and under that, just boy. I put my hand to my thigh and feel for my sword. I don’t call it, just feel for the itch of the magic, waiting there if I need it. I look out the window and watch the dark countryside go rolling by.


	3. Vampire Camp

**Simon**

It’s a long drive.

After about an hour, Baz stirs and makes Fiona stop the car. He opens the door and pukes again, then he nestles against me and is back to sleep. I don’t feel at all tired. I feel on high alert. I don’t trust Fiona for one thing. I never have. And Nico - with his greasy hair and his seedy clothes, sitting there sucking on the gaps in his teeth - well he’s kind of like the poster child for untrustworthy.

At last we get off the Motorway. We’re on all these twisting little roads and the moon is setting in the west - huge and reddish. We stop at an all night cafe in a tiny sleepy town and Fiona buys bacon rolls and cardboard cups of coffee. Baz stirs and drinks the coffee but just shudders at the sight of the bacon roll. I eat his as well as mine.

While I’m still eating Nico pulls over and stops the car. Baz gets out and stretches, and I follow him. He seems better. Not drunk anymore. But pale. When did he hunt last? He went to the catacombs tonight but that seems ages ago. And then there was all the puking. Fuck. As if I don’t have enough in my head. Now I have to worry about when was the last time my vampire boyfriend drank blood.

A cold wind is blowing and it smells of the sea. The dirt under our feet is sand scudded with snow and the grasses around us are blowing in the breeze, making a whispering slithery sound. The moon has set. It’s very dark outside the circle of the Citroen’s headlamps. I shiver, and Fiona looks over at me.

“Where’s your coat, Chosen One?” I don’t like the way she says it.

“Lost it,” I snarl back at her. As surly as I can make it.

She nudges Nico, who is standing next to her. “Give him yours,” she says. He raises an eyebrow at her, but doesn’t argue. He spits on the ground and pulls a small black pistol from his pocket. He sticks it in his belt, then takes off his jacket and hands it to me. It’s a black nylon affair. I put it on. It smells of old cigarettes and sweat and blood.

Fiona hands Baz a letter. He reads it silently, then nods once and slips it in the breast pocket of his jacket, under his cloak. “Make sure you give it to the leader,” she says. “Gideon Petrokov.”

“What else?” says Baz.

“See if you can get a reply. See if you can get him to agree to a parley.”

“All right,” says Baz.

“Keep your eyes and ears open,” says Fiona. “Any other information you can get could be useful.”

“All right,” says Baz again.

“And Baz?”

“Yes?”

“Be careful.”

He gets a funny look on his face. “Does father know I’m doing this?” he asks her.

“Malcolm? No. Of course not. You know he’d never agree to it.”

“Fine, then,” says Baz and he turns and walks swiftly up the sandy road, into the dunes, with his cloak billowing around him, and me following behind.

*********

**Baz**

The sandy track goes on for so long I wonder if we’re in the right place. Simon is coming up behind me, but once we’re out of sight of Nico and Fiona I stop and let him catch me up. He’s breathing hard. He grabs my hand and holds it as we walk.

“All right?” he whispers, though there’s no one around.

“Yeah,” I say. “You?”

“Fine,” he says. “But Baz?”

“What?”

“What exactly are we doing?”

“Delivering a message. Where’s your sword?”

“It’s sheathed. But ready.”

“Good. Come on.”

I smell the vampire camp before I see it; the smell of old blood. After a few more minutes of walking the buildings come into view. Low slung, barrack like buildings, like something out of a world war two film. It’s even surrounded by barbed wire. There isn’t a light in the place, but I sense that the occupants are still awake. The track ends at a gatehouse and inside is a minotaur. He steps out holding a spear. He looks a little frowsy, as if he just woke up. I see the orange glow of a fire burning inside through the open door, and catch a whiff of his animal scent, gamey and strong.

“Who tries to enter?” he asks in his deep bass voice.

“I have a message for Gideon Petrokov,” I say, looking at him steadily. “A message from the Coven.”

He looks me over with his big bovine eye. “I am Tyrannus Basilton Pitch,” I say, as haughty as I can make it. “And my companion is Simon Snow.” He startles at that. “We wish an audience with Gideon Petrokov. We have a message for him from the Coven.”

“You don’t really want to turn us away,” Simon glowers and his magic is shimmering on his skin.

Silently the minotaur opens the latch and lets the gate swing open. With his spear he points to the largest of the three buildings. “In there,” he says. He goes back into his gatehouse and shuts the door.

We cross the yard. It is very dark. I doubt Simon can see much of anything. I can see the door, a dark shadow in the dark wall facing the courtyard. I raise a fist and knock.

********

**Simon**

The bloke who opens the door is the same one as at the bar. The big bloke. The blond door man. He nods at me in recognition.

“We’re here to see Gideon Petrokov,” Baz says. Loud and imperious. Like he’s the king of the vampires. Which he could be, if he wanted to. “We have a message from the Coven.”

Behind him the room is lit with garish bare electric bulbs. Men and women are sitting around plain wood tables, dressed in black. There’s folding chairs. And cards. And bottles of Blue Sapphire gin. There are bunk beds against the walls but no one seems to be sleeping. I guess they go to bed when the sun comes up.

They’re staring at us, their cards and drinks forgotten. There’s about thirty of them in the room. If they turn on us, we won’t have much of a chance. My magic is out, glowing on my skin. I taste the smoky taste of it in the back of my throat, feel the ache of wings wanting to burst out in my shoulder blades. If things get bad, maybe I can fly us out of here.

“All right,” says a tall man dressed in a black jumpsuit, standing. He has a curly brown beard and pale, penetrating blue eyes. “I will talk to them.” He has just a trace of a Russian accent. The guard steps aside and lets us enter.

Gideon Petrokov looks us both over. He gestures with his head to a small table in the middle of the room. We sit and he sits opposite us. The big blond bloke, the guard, walks over and stands behind him. A tall, thin woman with very long black hair, also dressed in a black jumpsuit sets a blue glass tumbler in front of each of us. Baz lifts his and takes a swallow, so I do too. It’s straight gin. I wince and put the glass down.

Baz reaches into his cloak and hands Gideon the letter that Fiona had given him. The room is dead silent while he reads it, unnaturally silent, considering the number of people who are there. Everyone is watching us. The electric lights in the ceiling give off a faint hum.

He hands the letter to his buddy behind him, then looks up at us.

“What do you want, Mr. Pitch?” he asks.

“I was sent by the Coven,” says Baz. “I’m their representative. They want a parley. They want to know your intentions.”

“I’m sure they do,” he says with a sneer. He looks over at me, for the first time. His eyes are the palest blue, almost colorless. His nostrils flare, just slightly. I meet his gaze. “What are you doing here, Chosen One?” he asks softly.

I think of saying, “We’re on truce,” but that sounds incredibly childish. “We’re allies,” I say.

He nods, and looks back to Baz. “You should join with us, Mr Pitch” he says. “We can offer you so much more than the Coven can. Your loyalty is misplaced.”

“I don’t think so, Mr. Petrokov,” he replies coolly. “My loyalty is not for sale. I am looking for an answer.”

“The answer, Mr. Pitch, is that these are uncertain times. We are looking for a leader that can guarantee us our rights. A lack of persecution. Our rightful place in the Magickal community. Surely goals that you, in your unique position, have some empathy for.”

“I have no empathy for you,” Baz replies. I can hear the controlled anger in his voice. The big bloke behind him gives us an ugly grimace. Gideon is just staring at us. The room gets even quieter. I decide it’s time to reach for my sword. I recite the incantation in my head, and feel the sword’s cool weight in my right hand. I press my left thigh against Baz’s under the table. I hope he gets the message. _My magic is here for you if you need it._

“The Coven does not have a history of supporting our cause,” says Gideon.

“Will you talk to them?” Baz asks.

“No,” says Gideon. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Who else are you talking to?” I ask then. “Are you talking to the Mage?”

“What’s it to you?” Gideon asks, turning those cold eyes to me again. “I understand you have left his fold.”

“Have you joined with him?” I ask.

“We are for ourselves,” he replies. “Ourselves and our cause. The Coven has nothing to offer us. Nothing we really want. We are looking…. Elsewhere.”

Baz stands and I stand too. I sense someone, several someones, moving in behind us. I don’t really know how we are going to get out of this.

Gideon stands as well. “Leaving so soon?” he says. He smiles at us and I see his fangs are popped. “I think not.”

I feel a rush of air behind me, as someone goes to grab me from behind. A big bloke with an ugly leer and huge fangs. I duck and turn, and stick my sword into his belly. He groans and falls backward. The other bloke has his arms around Baz, who is struggling to kick and head butt him. He’s lean and muscular. His fangs are glinting in the low light and he has Baz fast. I pull my sword out of the writhing figure behind me. It illuminates the room with it’s powerful blue-white light. I turn and in one swift stroke I behead Baz’s attacker.The magickal blade goes through his neck like a knife through butter. His head lands on the wooden floor with a dull thud. Blood spurts as he crumples to the ground. Baz has his wand out instantly and a flame shoots out, right at Gideon Petrokov, but he ducks under the table and it misses. The big bloke behind him, the Nazi bouncer, is coming around the table for us and Baz casts another flame and he goes up, like an oily rag, with a shout. Baz casts a circle of orange flame around us, and the others back off, uncertainly. The door is blocked by a couple of other big vampires, leering at us from the shadows with their fangs gleaming. I grab Baz’s shoulder and push some magic into him. He casts “ _ **A Hole in the Wall**_ ” and blasts through the wall in the far corner. Wood splinters and dust go flying as we run for it.

“Stop them,” Gideon shouts, sticking his head up from behind the table. Baz looks back. He casts another flame at him, but he ducks again. The table starts to smoke, then bursts into flames. This distracts the other vampires, and Baz and I scramble out the gap in the wall and run across the yard to the gate. The minotaur is there with his spear, but my sword is out and still blazing. He lets us go without trying to stop us.

We run all the way to the car. We’re both covered with blood and soot. Fiona and Nico are standing there, smoking. Fiona looks at us and shakes her head. I take off Nico’s filthy jacket and hand it to him. He takes it between two fingers and drops it on the floor of the Citroen. We get in the car.

“Fiona,” says Baz, as she starts the engine. “That was a really bad idea.”

*********

After we drop Nico off at a tube station in downtown London, Baz and Fiona have a wicked row in the front seat of the car.

I don’t really get what they are to each other. She’s like part sibling, part parent. Though no parent would drop their child into that nest of vampires. Even if their child were undead themselves. Even if their child were Baz.

They fight like siblings.

She starts out by asking Baz every detail he can remember about the vampire camp, how many gates, how they were guarded, the buildings, the lighting, and then moves on to every detail of the conversation. When we get to the bit where Baz told Gideon he had no empathy for him, Fiona blows up at him.

“Negotiate, Baz,” she says. “I sent you in there to negotiate with him. Not piss him off.”

“It wouldn’t have made any difference,” says Baz. “His mind was made up, you could tell. The Coven’s terms weren’t nearly attractive enough for him.”

“It sounds like you fucking insulted him.”

“Yeah well he’s a fucking vampire. Gideon Bloody Petrokov! What did you expect me to do Fiona? Suck his dick? They’re bloodthirsty killers. The whole place stank of human blood. You don’t want them as allies. There’s no negotiating with them, Fiona. Not on any terms you could live with.”

“No leads, Basilton. I send you in there to get information and you get nothing.”

“Yeah, well we were lucky to get out of there alive.”

“You and your boyfriend.”

“Don’t start on Simon, Fiona. He just saved my life.”

“The fucking Mage’s heir, Baz? Really? That’s your new bloke?”

“Right here,” I say from the back seat. “I’m right back here.”

“Shut it,” Fiona says to me. “This has nothing to do with you.”

Fucking Fiona Pitch.

*********  
**Baz**

Fiona pulls into the lot behind her building with a squeal of tires. She’s still fuming and so am I. I’m pissed at her, for getting me into that mess, and I’m pissed at myself for going along with it. Simon is sulking in the backseat, and I catch a whiff of sulfur.

“You can kip at my place for a couple of hours and then I’ll drive you back to school,” she says gruffly.

It’s not a very warm invitation but I’m completely knackered, so tired that I stumble on a step as we climb to Fiona’s flat. Simon catches me by the elbow and I lean into him a little the rest of the way up. Once inside she pulls out a sofa bed. The sheets are pale lavender and mussed. “You two can have that,” she says flatly. “There’s bickies and tea in the kitchen if you’re hungry.” She slams the door as she disappears into her bedroom.

Simon and I flop onto that messy sofa bed with our clothes on, still filthy from the battle with the vampires. I put my arms around his chest and draw his warm, breathing body to mine. I hear the blood as it thuds in his veins.

“We made it,” I whisper.

“Yeah, barely,” he replies. I hear his breathing slowing and sense his limbs relaxing, becoming heavy in my arms.

“Why do you trust me?” I ask. “I’m just like them.”

“You’re nothing like them.”

I don’t have a reply.

“Baz?”

“Here.”

“I trust you.” He turns his head round and kisses me hard, on the lips. “Completely. I trust you completely.”

And then we’re both asleep.


	4. At Fiona's Flat

**Simon**

I wake up on Fiona’s crappy fold out couch to Baz kissing the back of my neck. Urgently, insistently. It feels good. It feels great. His lips are working my skin. His tongue is long, skinny like the rest of him and cool. He lets his teeth graze the skin on the back of my neck and then he starts taking these tiny bites that make me gasp a little. He never bites me, he’s afraid to, but this right now seems to be going all right. And it feels incredible. His thigh is pressing into mine and I can’t feel his cock but I know it’s there. I sense it’s presence, hard and urgent, just behind me and I want him closer. I want to feel him pressing into me. I put my hand behind me to pull him close but he growls at me and pulls back. His hands are moving down, pulling up my shirt and stroking my back and then lower, and he’s squeezing my arse through my trousers, working his fingers into the crack, stroking the sensitive center, what suddenly feels like the center of everything. My cock is bulging against my flies and my pants feel tight and small. I hear Baz breathing hard behind me. Then he does push against me, his cock right up against the crack through all the layers of fabric. My insides are squirming already from what he’s been doing with his fingers and I want him. All of him. Inside me. Then his mouth is on my ear, licking with his cool tongue. “Let’s shag,” he whispers.

I turn my head around and look at him and say. “Here?”

“I found some lube in Fiona’s bathroom,” he says and bends to kiss my mouth.

“Really?” I say.

“Mmm Hmm,” he says, working his mouth into my neck and breathing in deeply, like he’s smelling me.

I pull my head back and shift my hips so his weight is off me. “Baz,” I say. “We’re in your aunt’s living room.”

“She’s asleep,” he says. “She sleeps like the dead. She never wakes up before noon.”

“What time is it?”

“About 11:30.”

“Baz,” I say again, pushing his head back and running my fingers through his hair, which is matted and sticky, not at all like it’s usual slick slippery self. “No.”

“No?” he says and there’s a look on his face I’ve never seen before. Hurt.

“Not here,” I say.

“I thought maybe you wanted to,” he says. I swear he looks like a little kid who's just been told he can’t go to the fair or something.

“I do want to,” I say. His eyes are downcast. He looks so young and vulnerable.

“You do?” he says. “Really?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I…….. I want to Baz, all right?” I lift his head under the chin with a finger and kiss his temple. “Just…. Not here.”

“Why not?” he says stubbornly. Petulantly. Like a little kid. I kind of can’t believe he’s being this dense.

“Why not? Because we’re in Fiona’s fucking living room! Which is enemy territory as far as I’m concerned. She hates me. And besides, we’re both covered in vampire blood.”

“We could take a shower,” he says. ”The bathroom door locks. I used to wank in there all the time.”

“No,” I say. “Just…. No, all right? Not here. I’m not comfortable here. I want to get out of here, to tell you the truth. And if we don’t call Penny soon and let her know we’re not dead she’s….it’s going to be bad.”

He gets out of bed and stands over by the window and looks down on the street. I can tell he’s upset by the way his shoulders are hunched. I don’t feel remotely sexy any more. “We almost died,” he says to the window.

I get up and walk over to the window. I put my arms around him, look out on the grimy winter day. Piles of dirty snow are melting in the street, and the sky has that heavy leaden look. He feels good against me. Solid. Like something to hold on to. I kiss the back of his neck. “Later,” I whisper. “Tonight if you like. I want to. Just…. Not here.”

*********

Baz ends up taking a shower by himself while I make do with a  _ **Clean as a Whistle**_ and make tea in Fiona’s bare, depressing, kitchen. There's a phone on the wall, an ancient looking green plastic job. Penny made me memorize her illegal mobile number and now I’m glad she did. She answers on the seventh ring.

“It’s me,” I say at once. I can hear her breathing hard on the other end. She probably had to move fast to find a place to answer in private.

“Simon,” she whispers.

“Yeah.”

“Where are you?”

“Fiona Pitch’s fucking flat,” I say.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, we’re fine,” I say. “We are now.”

“Is Baz with you? What happened?”

“Yeah, Baz is with me. We’ll tell you when we see you, all right?”

“I’m coming to London,” she says.

“You are? Why?”

“I don’t have any lessons this afternoon. And we can go to the Magickal Registry. I’ll get the 1:00 train. Meet me at three at Paddington?”

“Um…...sure…. Yeah. I guess.” I’m not too enthusiastic about the Magickal Registry.

“I’ve got to go,” she whispers. “See you at three.” And she hangs off.

Baz emerges from the bathroom smelling of some flowery, girly soap of Fiona’s and wearing a pink silky dressing gown. He looks fantastic in it. Like he was born to wear pink silk. He takes a chipped mug of tea from me, and rummages around until he finds the packet of digestives and throws it to me. I extract a stale biscuit and eat it. Baz opens a small drawer in the formica topped table and pulls out a zip-lock bag filled with weed. He finds another zip-lock bag in another drawer and tips about a third of the stash into it, zips it up, and slips it into the pocket of that goofy robe.

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s get dressed and get out of here. We’ll have a proper breakfast and buy you a coat.”

**********

**Baz**

I know I shouldn’t let it upset me, but it does. Simon’s reasons make perfect sense.

It’s just…. I want him. Like that. Totally…...merged. I want to fuck him. Or him to fuck me. Something. I’m still working that part out, in my mind. I’m not completely sure how it’s supposed to work. And we almost died last night. Which Simon seems to be taking in stride but which is actually freaking me out quite a bit. And it was hard to ask.

I’ve been wanting to ask for a long time.

He said later, which isn’t exactly no. But still.

I get it that Fiona intimidates him, although actually I think he’s overreacting to her. She is being a horrible bitch to him, but that’s just her way. Fiona’s marking her territory, showing how tough she can be. She’s kind of feral when it comes to me. She wants to let Simon know he can’t get away with anything. But if she was really against him she wouldn’t have let us sleep on her stupid fold out couch.

It’s too late to get breakfast, but Simon says, “I know where to go.” He drags me to a halal stand in Mayfair, outside the tube station where the owner greets him like an old friend. He shakes my hand like he’s really glad to meet me and we sit at his counter in the warmth coming up the steps from the platform and drink scalding mint tea while he cooks us a meal. I don’t know how Simon knows this fellow, but they’re chatting amicably about his son and Simon’s sick friend (Ebb, I guess.) Simon can do this, just strike up a friendship with a random guy on the street, some poor bloke who has to stand out there in the cold and make rice and lamb all day. I sit there and drink my tea and listen to them talk. I eat the food when it comes. It’s delicious. Normally I would be sneering, but I’m not. I feel… shy. Like I want this man to like me. His warmth is so pervasive, I can’t help feeling good around him, somehow.

“Where’s your coat?” he asks Simon, with concern as we get up and start fishing around for money to pay him.

“I lost it,” he mumbles.

“You need a coat, my friend,” he says. “It is a cold day, is it not?”

Simon shrugs.

He turns to me. “Find him a coat.” he says. “He is your friend, yes? You should take care of each other.”

“All right,” I say. I give Simon a grin. “Let’s go buy you a coat.”

“I don’t really have the money,” he says, looking down.

“I’ll pay,” I say.

“No,” he says.

“Simon, I…”

“No,” he cuts me off. “I don’t want you buying me a coat.”

“Why not?”

“Just….no.”

“Go to the Oxfam shop on Drury Lane. They always have something there,” says our halal man wisely. Like Buddha himself.

It’s more of a command than a suggestion, so we go.

It’s great. There’s a lot to choose from and we both have fun trying on different jackets and coats. Simon looks dead handsome in this Australian oilcloth affair that’s meant for herding sheep, and I also really like him in the leather bomber look, but in the end he chooses a lined black duffel coat that’s a lot like the one he used to have. The sales clerk throws in a bright red scarf for twenty quid and I lend him the money and then it’s time to meet Penny at Paddington station.


	5. The Magickal Registry

**Baz**

We get to the British Museum an hour before closing and duck inside between the Greek columns to the weird glassed in courtyard that feels like a tube station. Maybe a nice tube station. The reading room, an old round building in the center of the courtyard is locked up, but Bunce finds a door in back where there aren’t that many people about and I unlock it using _ **Entre Nous**_. The door opens with a satisfying click and we slip in.

Inside it’s dark and dusty. The dim light from late afternoon is coming in the big windows in the dome high above us, but it’s fading fast. This room was locked off from the public a year or two ago, but it feels like it’s been abandoned for much longer.

It’s a famous place, this room, and old. Many important scholars have studied here and I feel their presence, ghostlike as I look about. The huge space is filled with bookshelves in a circle, ascending up in tiers to where the large windows fill the domed ceiling above us. I exchange a look with Bunce and I know she feels the way I do. Hungry, for the books. But we’re not here for that.

She goes over to the central desk. She takes a slip of paper out of her pocket and picks up the handset of an ancient looking, black rotary phone that’s sitting there.The clicking and whirring of the dial is loud in the quiet room. I can hear the ringing, faint and tinny, on the other end of the phone, and then a click and a high dry female voice. I can’t make out the words.

“Yes,” Bunce says, hoarsely into the phone. “Penelope Bunce,” a pause while the voice on the other end speaks. “Doing research for a school project.” Another pause. “Watford.”......Pause......”My father, Martin Bunce.” Another high pitched murmur and Penny hangs off as a panel slides open in a space between the bookshelves.

“Come along,” she says with a satisfied smirk and leads us through the doorway.

There’s a narrow iron stairway that spirals up and creaks and shifts a bit under our weight. We keep climbing. The steps get progressively narrower and closer together, but that’s all right because we are shrinking too. At last we get to a room high above the glass ceiling of the courtyard, a room that seems, improbably, situated at the top of the dome itself. I don’t quite know how I know it, but I suspect that the three of us have shrunk down to the size of large rats.

My suspicions are confirmed when I enter the room. It’s dusty and old, lit by flickering gas lamps and lined with ancient looking tomes and ledgers. The only concession to any kind of modern technology is the large old black telephone sitting on the desk. No computer screens here. Sitting behind the tall wooden counter is a large grey rat wearing a flowery smock. She has wire rimmed spectacles on her long nose and a pencil stuck behind her ear.

“Welcome to the Magickal Registry,” she says in a high reedy voice that isn’t welcoming at all. “State your names and business.”

So we do, and she writes it all down in a big ledger book using a scratchy fountain pen. Her handwriting is old fashioned copper plate script. Nobody writes like that anymore, except Mages. Handwriting is a big deal at Watford because it’s important in certain kinds of magic. All the younger students have to take penmanship the first three years of school. The writing master, Professor Quill, is famous for his liberal use of his ruler on students’ knuckles. Simon and Bunce and I all suffered through it together. Simon used to get his knuckles rapped all the time. I used to love it.

The rat looks at us beadily when Bunce feeds her the lame line about the school project, but she has a letter from her dad which causes the rat to smile at us, showing her yellow teeth. “A fine man, your father,” she says to Penny and shuffles off into the shadows and returns with what we need. Large, dusty tomes. _Marriages, 1995, Marriages, 1996, Marriages 1997, Births 1996, Births, 1997, Births 1998._ She hands over the books and we take them to a long table, as far from the piercing eyes of the rat as we can get, and start sifting through.

“We’re looking for David Weir,” Penny whispers. “That’s the Mage’s real name. And Lucy Salisbury. My Mum doesn’t think they ever got married, but still, we should look.”

I catch a whiff of sulfur off Simon. He’s glowering, hunkered down in his wooden straight backed chair. I reach under the table and squeeze his thigh in what I hope is an encouraging manner, then crack open one of the heavy dusty books.

*******

**Simon**

I fucking hate this.

I really fucking hate this.

I don’t see why this matters. At all. And right now I just don’t want to know. If he really is my father. That is the last thing that seems important.

How to defeat him, yes. How to fight the Humdrum, yes. How to prevail against the bloody vampires that nearly got us last night, most certainly. I feel for my sword. It’s there, reassuringly. I sense it’s presence, waiting to be called. What I want to do right now is fight. Again. It felt good as fuck to kill those vampires last night. Like I was finally doing something. Even though realistically that whole episode probably did more harm than good.

I’m a fighter. It’s what I’m good at. It’s what I’m here for. It’s what I know how to do. It’s just that right now, I don’t have any idea how to fight my biggest enemies.

And I don’t like that creepy rat and the way she’s staring at us.

This whole place feels like a trap.

I really don’t like the thought of having to fight my enemies when I’m only 10 inches tall.

So I sit in my chair and glower. I know I’m stinking up the place with my magic but right now, I don’t even care.

When Penny takes a sharp intake of breath and stares up at me with wide eyes I know instantly what she’s found. Me. My birth record. And I know at once it’s true. What we’ve suspected all along. The Mage really is my father. David Fucking Weir.

Penny shoves the book across the table to me and Baz and we stare at it. The handwriting is that fancy copperplate I never could get good at. The ink is purple and the writing seems to shimmer and move in the weird flickering light of the gas sconce behind us.

The entry is only two lines. The names. _David Weir. Lucy Salisbury. Simon Snow Weir._ Me. My parents. A family that never was. A family I never got to have. I can’t help it. My throat is tight and my eyes are hot. I feel Baz’s arm go around my shoulders and I’m grateful for it.

He puts a long elegant finger on the date beside the names. _June 21, 1997_. “Your birthday,” he whispers.

There’s a loud ping behind us. We all startle and turn around. The rat has just hit one of those metal bells that people keep on counters to get the attention of the clerk in a store. “Closing time,” she says in her high reedy voice.

Penny all ready has her mobile out. She snaps a picture of the page before the ratty librarian or whatever she is can say anything. The rat gives us a nasty look but is silent. We return the books to the counter and she sees us out. The bang of the door shutting behind us echoes in the stone stairwell. Thank Merlin and Morgana we slowly regain our normal size as we descend the creaking spiral staircase.

I am seriously glad to be shut of the Magickal Registry.


	6. Purple Ink and Honey

**Simon**

By the time we get back to Watford on the train we’ve missed dinner. There’s a tiny pub in the village that sells food and we stop in there for sandwiches and chips. We get a booth in the back where we can talk and Baz orders us pints without asking if we want them. Penny takes a sip of hers and grimaces, but the foamy bitterness actually tastes kind of good to me tonight.

We tell Penny all about Fiona and Nicodemus and the vampire camp, and we all try to figure out what it means, though there isn’t really much of a mystery. It’s bad. The vampires don’t want to ally with us. That’s clear. Probably they’ve all ready got some kind of deal with the Mage. They certainly didn’t deny it when I asked them.

Baz has the pale drawn look he gets when he needs to hunt. He drains his beer, but just picks at the food when it comes. He’s distracted, half listening, while Penny goes over everything again to make sure she hasn’t missed anything. He’s tapping his long white fingers on the table and he has that little line between his eyes. Finally I can’t stand it anymore.

“Go,” I tell him. “We’ll finish up here and meet you later.”

“Where will we meet?” he says. But he’s already standing. Checking his wand. Reaching for his cloak.

“The rabbit gate,” I say. “I have the key. We’ll wait for you there.”

“When?” he asks, fastening his cloak.

“You tell me,” I say, looking at him.

“Forty five minutes,” he says, throwing some money on the table. He looks at me, and for a moment I think he’s going to kiss me, right there in the pub. Instead he turns to Penny. “Cheers, Bunce,” he says and he’s striding towards the door, tall and elegant, his black cloak swirling around him.

Once he’s gone, Penny shakes her head and just starts giggling.

“Stop it,” I say. I reach over and take a sip of her undrunk beer.

“Can’t help it,” she says, picking at the chips on Baz’s plate. It’s cozy in this booth, and warm. We have some time to kill, and I miss Penny. With everything that’s been going on we haven’t been hanging out as much as we used to.

“What’s so funny?” I say now.

“Oh, I don’t know, Simon. You. Baz. The whole situation.”

“Ha Ha.”

“No, it’s not ha, ha funny. It’s more like, who would have ever thought funny. You know?”

I do know. I know exactly. I think it every day. Every hour practically.

“You seem happy,” she says now, looking at me. I shrug, then smile. I can’t help it. I am happy. Even with all the shit that is happening, and the past twenty four hours have been off the charts intense, I feel good inside. I feel good, sitting here with Penny. I feel good that Baz is out in the woods, hunting, getting what he needs. I feel good that soon we’ll be together in our room, not fighting. On the same side. Holding onto each other. I feel my cheeks get hot, and Penny just smiles at me. She gets up and returns from the bar with two mugs of tea. I’m polishing off her beer and Baz’s chips

“The Mage is your dad,” she says now, handing me a mug and sitting down opposite me. Her eyes are intense behind her glasses. Her mass of curls is pulled back in a messy ponytail.

I shrug. I don’t know what to say. I’ve been trying not to think about it, but of course, there it is. Can’t get away from the facts. She pulls out her mobile and stares at the picture she took of my birth record. The image is there, blurry but legible. I wasn’t sure you could take a picture of a magickal book like that and have it come out, but apparently I was wrong. We both sit there and look at it.

“We kind of knew all ready,” I say. “We guessed right, and the Humdrum told us, anyway. But it’s still weird.”

“I wonder why,” she says.

“Why what?”

“Why he hid it from you.”

“That he was my dad?”

“Yeah.”

I don’t really wonder about that. I know, somehow. I spent enough time with him. I know how he thought about me. Like a weapon. Like a sword he needed to hone. Acknowledging that he was my dad would have just gotten in the way of all that. Love would have been a huge distraction from the task at hand.

“Because he’s a cold bloody bastard who was only ever after my power,” I say now, bitterly. Just in case she doesn’t get it.

But Penny nods, thoughtfully. “That’s true,” she says. She gets it. He just killed her brother, after all.

“He never even told me when my birthday was,” I say now. This bugs me as much as anything. “All those years I never had a birthday. He could have told me somehow.“ June 21st. Now I know. But it’s too late. I’m not a kid anymore. It doesn’t really do me any good.

“The summer solstice,” she says.

“Is it?” I’ve never been great with all that astronomical lore, even though we’re supposed to know it.

“Yeah,” she says. “It is. I wonder what happened to your mother…….. Lucy.”

“Your Mum was friends with her, right?” I ask. This is a weird and amazing thought. I had a mother, and she was friends with Penny’s Mum at school. That is the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard. “Maybe she knows what happened to her.”

“She doesn’t ,” Penny says.”I’ve asked her. Except maybe she went to America. And she doesn’t know anything about Lucy being pregnant either. But she doesn’t sound like the kind of person who would….you know…. abandon her baby.”

I don’t like to think about that. I don’t like to think about any of it, really. It’s too big, too much, right now. “Is your Mum really going to be headmistress?” I ask, to change the subject.

“She’s moving in this weekend,” says Penny, so she puts away her phone and we talk about that for a while, which I’m glad of. The subject of my mother, someone who has a name that I never knew before, Lucy Salisbury, is dropped for now, thankfully.

“How’s she doing with, you know, Premal and all?” I ask.

Penny shrugs and looks down. “Terrible, I guess. She doesn’t talk about it. But she’s got these bags under her eyes. I can tell she’s not sleeping much. And she’s got this distracted air. You know. Like all the important stuff is happening far, far away.”

“And how’re you doing?”

“Oh Simon,” she says. She reaches across the table to take my hand as her eyes fill up with tears.

“I’m sorry, Penny,” I say.

“Don’t say sorry,” she says, and gives me a sad smile. “We haven’t time for that. It’s just that….well I hardly saw Premal the last couple of years. And he was being a complete git, you know? But I always thought it was just some stupid phase. That he was being an idiot boy, him and the Mage, waving their swords around. Like it was all just about testosterone and eventually he’d figure it out, that it was just some Marvel comic fantasy, and we’d be friends again, like we used to be. We played together all the time when we were little. My mum used to call us partners in crime. We used to have so much fun. We used to get so into these games we’d make up, we’d forget to come in to dinner. A couple of times they got really worried about us, but they always found us eventually. And now he’s…. He’s gone, Simon.” She wipes a tear from her eye. “No reconciliation. No making up and being friends again.” She shakes her head, like she’s trying to shake the bad thoughts away. “I know Mum and Dad feel the same way. Like they were just waiting for him to come home and be part of the family again. And now he never will.”

“We still don’t know what really happened,” I say.

“No,” she says, and takes out a handkerchief and wipes her eyes.

“We’ll find out, Penny,” I say. I think about Baz, his vendetta against the Mage. “It isn’t over yet.”

She gets up and starts fastening her cloak. “I’ve tons of homework,” she says with a sigh. “And I’m sure you do, too, Simon.” She puts on her stupid bobble hat. “You got a new coat,” she says, looking at me as I pull it on and wrap the red scarf around my neck.

“Yeah, we got it at a second hand shop in London,” I tell her. I feel self conscious, suddenly. I guess it’s pretty gay to go shopping with my boyfriend. But I really like this coat.

“It looks good,” she says, smiling at me as we walk out of the pub into the chilly night air.

********

“Niall asked Rowan to the Winter Ball and she said yes,” Penny reports as we are walking back to school from the village.

“How d’you know that?” I ask. I feel kind of woozy from the beer. Not exactly drunk. Just a bit….toasted.

“He told me at lunch today,” Penny says.

“You had lunch with him?”

“Mmmm,” Penny nods. “And Dev. Dev is working up the courage to ask Agatha. He may have, by tonight.”

It’s pretty weird to think of Penny having lunch with Dev and Niall, sitting there with them, giving them advice about girls. “And you encouraged him?” I ask now.

“I…..yeah….I …….you don’t mind, do you?” she looks worried.

“No…..I……”

“It’s over with you and Agatha, right?” she asks. “You’re with Baz now. And Dev really does like her. And he’s…….I think he’d be good for her.”

I don’t mind. Except I kind of do. Which is completely irrational. But still.

“Simon?” she says. She stops walking, her eyes searching me through her glasses. I hassle my hair with my hand.

“No, Penny. It’s ……..fine. I…… It’s just still a little weird for me, that’s all.”

“I guess that makes sense,” she says slowly. “I can see that.” We start walking again. “Are you going to the ball with Baz?” she asks.

“No.” I haven’t given one moment of thought to the Winter Ball. Too busy fighting vampires and finding out who my parents are.

“Why not?” she asks.

“I don’t know Penny. I haven’t thought about it. But I don’t think we’re ready for that.” _I’m_ not ready for that.

“We could go together,” she says now. “The three of us. You, me and Baz. We could dance together in a big group and just have fun. It’s our last Winter Ball, you know.”

It does sound fun. Even though I’m a terrible dancer. And I’ve gone with Agatha, the last three years. It’s actually kind of a relief not to have to deal with that again. Trying to please her, trying to dance right, trying to be the boyfriend she wants me to be. That little set to her mouth that let’s me know I’m getting it all wrong.

I kind of like the thought of Penny, Baz and me just letting loose on the dance floor together.

Baz is waiting for us by the rabbit gate. He’s a black silhouette against the snow, tall and angular in his dark cloak, his hair whipping back in the chilly breeze.

Merlin, he looks good!

I guess I really am getting over Agatha.

********

**Baz**

By the time we’re climbing the stairs up to our room I’m nervous. And impatient. And horny. Simon said later and now seems like later but I’m not sure what happens next.

I’m afraid I’m not going to be very good at this.

The door shuts behind us and I lock it with my wand. The loud click echoes in the room. Simon grins over at me, and his hand goes to the back of my neck. His kiss is slow and soft. Confident. Which is ridiculous, but there it is. Why should he be the confident one? But he’s got this look on his face, that he gets when he knows what he wants. Like he’s Simon Snow and nothing can stop him. And I love him. I’m literally weak in the knees, with loving him. I’m not doing anything to stop him. His lips are thick and warm, and his tongue is moving, delicately, into my open mouth. He’s moving his chin against mine, that lovely movement, and his other hand is snaking around my waist, pulling me close. I like this so much. Just…… this. I work my hands under his new duffel coat and against the place in his back where his wings form and I feel the magic pulsing there, just under the skin, thick and electric. His chest is pushed hard against mine and I don’t feel anxious any more. I feel…..good. Open. Like if we just keep holding each other and kissing anything could happen and it would be okay.

For a long while we are just lost in each other, floating. I’m not worrying about anything, not thinking. At last he pulls his mouth away and leans his forehead against mine. His eyes are dense and blue and boring into me. “Are we going to …..you know…..shag?” he whispers. Determined. Simon. His breath is smoky.

I feel the blush rise from my neck to my hairline. I’ve just hunted and my cheeks are burning. He smiles at me then and reaches up to brush my widows peak with his lips.

“I have lube,” I whisper to him.

“Actual lube?” he asks, surprised.”Where’d you get it?”

“I got it in London over break. I brought it back with me,” I confess.

“You’ve had it all this time?”

“Yes,” I say, embarrassed.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he says. I feel his belly jiggling against mine as he starts to laugh.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I just…...didn’t know how to.”

“Get it,” he says, kissing me. So I do. I walk over to my dresser and extract the tube from my drawer and he’s watching me. Every step.

I put it on my bedside table and then I undress slowly, carefully, hanging everything up in my wardrobe, until I’m naked, standing in front of Simon who is standing there watching me in his new duffle coat. It was only today that we bought it. It seems a million years ago. I get into my bed. “Get undressed and get in all ready,” I say, and so he does, undressing quickly and slipping in beside me, warm arms around me and his smoky breath in my face.

“Who gets to…...you know, do the actual shagging?” he asks. The question I’ve been wondering for a while but I know the answer, now.

“You do,” I say, kissing his jaw. His skin feels so good against mine.

“Are you sure?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say, “I’m sure.” I reach for the lube and start slicking his cock, and he throws back his head and closes his eyes.

His cock is thick and powerful looking and I like the feel of it, under my hand, with the lube making everything slippery and smooth. I like it so much I almost forget what we’re about until he takes my hand and stops me rubbing him. He slicks a finger with spit and starts making circles around my arse, wetting it, first with spit and then with some of the lube, until my breath is coming in little gasps and I’m ready for more.

“All right?” he whispers.

“I want you in me,” I whisper back. He rolls me onto my stomach and spreads my cheeks with his hand, and then I feel his cock pushing against me and then slowly, slowly, pushing into the center of me. It doesn’t exactly hurt, but the pressure is intense, as if he might break me in two. His hand snakes around to grab my cock but I don’t want to come too soon and I push it away. ‘’’Not yet,” I hiss. I breathe through the pressure and feel it relaxing a little. It’s like a space inside me opening up, a space I never realized was there. I brace my hips hard against the bed and let him take me, willing my breathing slow and deep as I open up to him. He’s pushing in further and then he starts to move inside me, thrusting, gently at first, then more intensely. My hips are pushing back against him. There’s a rhythm to it and I like him inside, that hard pressure of Simon’s cock deep within me, his hot gaspy breath against my neck. He reaches his hand around my cock again and the pleasure intensifies. “Now, Baz now”, he moans, fucking me harder. “Now honey, now, come on, come with me.” It’s all just waves of pleasure, exploding, inside and outside me and I feel him starting to come and I feel the muscles in my arse, tightening, holding onto him as we wash over the edge together.

“Not….. a virgin….... any more,” I gasp as his dead weight falls on me and he leans forward to nibble my ear and kiss my mouth. I’m kind of panting. “It’s…. official,” I say twisting my head round to kiss him back as he slides out of me. I roll onto my side and put my legs and arms around him, holding him as close and tight as I can. Bronze curls in my face and the smell of smoke all around me. “Do you think there’s a book at the Magickal Registry? We forgot to look.”

He laughs at that. He’s happy, loose. “Doesn’t matter,” he says. “I’m not going back there. Ever.”

I kiss the top of his head. “Did you really call me honey?” I ask.

“Yeah, sorry, it just kind of….. came out.” he says, which makes us both giggle.

“What’s next?” I say. “Sweetie? Pumpkin?”

“Your arse is way too skinny to call you pumpkin,” he says, and gives it a possessive squeeze which I don’t mind at all.

“It’s like we’re in some stupid romantic comedy from the 1940’s,” I complain.

“Yeah, well, you were dressed the part in that pink robe of Fiona’s this morning.”

“Oh,” That. “Sorry,” I say

“No it’s all right. I liked you in it.”

“Really?” I say. “You did?” _Maybe Simon is, in fact, actually gay,_ I think, but this time, thank Merlin, I have the sense to keep that thought to myself.

“Yeah,” he says, with an enormous yawn. We’re both knackered. Beyond knackered. I feel myself starting to drift off. “You looked really good in it.” He kisses my nose. “Pink is a good color for you.”

I settle into Simon’s arms, both of us slick with sweat and come and lube, smelling of smoke and sex. It’s a glorious mess and I love it. I drift off to the image of a quill pen, writing down both our names in purple ink, in the ledger of people who are officially no longer virgins.


	7. Ice and Blood

**Baz**

Wellbelove catches me up after Greek next afternoon and asks if she can talk to me for a moment. I kind of know what’s coming.

“Baz,” she says once we’re away from the herd of milling students, walking on a cobblestone path between the Weeping Tower and the Cloisters. It’s a melty kind of day, not exactly sunny, but bright. As if winter is loosening its grip. Agatha has on a white ski jacket and a sky blue knit cap. She’s whipping her gorgeous hair around as she walks. Her head is high but I can tell she’s nervous by the way she’s twisting her hands together.

“I thought…… you might want to go to the Winter Ball with me.” She says it too fast, her lovely blue eyes locked onto mine.

Oh dear.

How can she not know. About me and Simon. Everyone else seems to. Even the bloody halal man gave us a special _“Aren’t you two cute together?”_ smile. But Wellbelove just stands there expectantly, looking pale and lovely in the weak winter sunshine. Too fucking good looking for her own damn good.

Her blue eyes are boring into me. Stubborn. Like she’s not backing down. It reminds me of Simon, in an uncanny sort of way. I genuinely don’t know what to say. Which isn’t really like me. At last I say the only thing I can think of.

“Agatha, I’m gay.”

She stares at me, like I’ve just said I’m an alien from another planet or something. She kind of crumples, somehow. Her haughty, flirtatious demeanor evaporates. We stand there, awkwardly, neither of us knowing what to say.

“Are you sure?” she asks, at last.

I laugh at that, a short bitter laugh. “Yeah,” I say. “I’m sure.”

“Is that what you meant? That time?”

“What time?”

“You said you were wrong for me. You said… learn the difference.”

“Yes.” I say. “Yes. That is exactly what I meant.”

She staggers a bit and for a moment I think I might have to reach out to catch her so she doesn’t fall, but she recovers. She looks off at the horizon and swallows, hard.

“But Baz,” she whispers.

This really is too painful.

“Yes?”

“I….I really like you.” Is that a tear in her beautiful blue eye? Fuck.

“I’m sorry Agatha,” I say.

I turn to walk away. And I start walking. Head high, long strides. Like I don’t give a fuck. I get about three steps and I stop.

I don’t know why I do it. It must be Simon’s influence. All that apple cheeked goodness is starting to rub off on me. But fuck it, I just don’t want to leave Agatha standing there miserable, like I’m a complete arse. I turn toward her. Her eyes are kind of pink and her nose is dripping and she doesn’t look that beautiful right now. She looks sad. Which makes it easier to say what I have to say.

“Agatha.”

She sniffs and looks at the ground. For some reason I think of my mother, her rough hands, her voice saying, “ _The strength of the spell is in the heart of the caster._ ”

“I really am sorry. I mean, I apologize. I’ve been an arse. I shouldn’t have flirted with you, and I did.” She just stands there, looking down. Frozen. Like the ice queen.

“And I can’t be your boyfriend. But maybe I could just …. be your friend?”

Nothing.

“You were brilliant with the Humdrum. I mean you saved us Agatha. It was smart and…..it was…...brave and…..righteous.”

She looks up.

“Are you dating Simon?” she asks.

I feel all the blood in me rise to my cheeks. I nod once, and it’s my turn to look to the ground.

We both stand there in the cold, looking down at the dirty frozen path.

“I could use a friend,” she says at last. I look up and she’s smiling at me. A small smile, cautious. She starts walking toward the dining hall. After a few steps she stops and turns her head back to where I am standing, rooted to the spot. “Come on,” she says. “Let’s get tea.”

And we do.

It feels okay, walking beside Agatha, towards the dining hall. Maybe I could use a friend as well. “Dev asked me to the ball,” she confides in me as we walk.

I know this. Dev told me this morning, at breakfast. “Did he?” I say.

“Oh, shut it Baz. I know you know already!”

I just raise an eyebrow to her in reply. “You should go with him,” I say. “He’s a good bloke and he really likes you.”

“Hmmm…...Maybe,” she says thoughtfully.

Simon, Penny, Dev and Niall are all gathered around a table, having tea, when Agatha and I enter the dining hall. Dev gives Agatha a hopeful smile, and she bestows one of her radiant ones on him in return. Simon gives me a curious look as I budge in beside him, my leg just brushing his.

The cherry scones are exceptionally good today. I have two.

*******

**Simon**

The gwythaint is doing better.

I head down to Ebb’s after tea and he’s sitting up in his box. When he sees me he flaps his wings and squawks excitedly. It gives me a slight tingle in my own shoulders, where my wings come out, to see him do that.

“Look Simon, he knows you!” says Ebb, enthusiastically. She lifts him out and sets him on my lap. He starts butting his head against my chest as if he’s looking for food.

Ebb supplies a bowl and spoon and I feed the baby. This time he doesn’t take much persuading. He finishes the entire bowl, then rests his scaly black head against my shoulder and he’s asleep.

Once we’ve got the gwythaint settled in his box Ebb has me hold onto the goats round the head while she feels about their udders and checks their withers, trying to decide who is going to be the first to kid. Then I help her haul water and grain for them and spread clean hay for the night. Once all that’s done, Ebb makes me sit and have a cup of tea with her. I’ve mountains of homework, but it’s cozy to sit at Ebb’s scarred wooden table, sipping tea, while the afternoon turns to dusky indigo outside her window. There’s a great view of the school from here, all yellow lights glowing in the gloom.

“I found out about my parents,” I tell her.

“Simon,” she says. “How’d ya do that?”

“We went to the Magickal Registry,” I say. “It was written down. Right there. In this big dusty book.”

“That place,” she says. “I’ve heard of it. Ain’t never been there though. Who is it then?’’

“It’s the Mage,” I say. “And…. and Lucy.” It feels weird saying the name. My mother’s name. I never knew it before.

Ebb gives me a gentle look. “I thought maybe it was.” she says softly. “How d’ya feel Simon? Knowing all that?”

I shrug and look down.

“Must be odd, knowing that all of a sudden, after all this time,” says Ebb softly. “Bit of a shock, like.”

“Why would he hide it from me?” I ask her. “And what…. What happened to my mother?”

“I don’t know,” says Ebb, sipping her tea from a chipped pink mug. “Davy’s….. Not right , Simon. He always wanted more than any person should. And I guess he pulled Lucy along with him. Lucy Salisbury,” she chews over the name thoughtfully. “ I haven’t thought about her in years.”

“Do you remember her at all?” I ask, hopefully.

“Oh yes,” says Ebb. "I looked up to her. She was beautiful, Lucy was. And strong. She played sports. And she had this lovely soft flaxen hair. Same color as mine, but I could never get mine to do what hers did, just…..fall so prettily. And she was kind. She probably only spoke to me a handful times but she was always kind. I remember her going about on Davy’s arm. But they were older than me. I was just a little kid, admiring them from afar. They seemed so old to me then, though I guess they were about your age. But back then, they seemed kind of untouchable….all grown up…..perfect. She had a brother, I think. That would be your uncle.”

“Uncle?” I stare at her, taking this in. “Like…….a relation?”

Ebb just nods at me.

“Like…….alive?”

Ebb shrugs. “Dunno, Simon,” she says. “He didn’t go to Watford for some reason. I never met him. Not even sure if I’m remembering right really. But I think so. I remember her and Mitali Bunce talking about him once.”

“What were they talking about?”

Ebb shrugs. “Sorry Simon. I forget. It was a long time ago…. Probably shouldn’t have brought him up.” she adds, looking uncomfortable all of a sudden.

“No….no,” I say. “It’s fine.” I rise to go. “I’m glad you told me. I…..I’ve got homework,” I say. I want to get away and think about this for a few moments. “I…...Thanks for the tea.”

*********

  
Penny has declared that we all need to get some homework done before we can have another strategy meeting, and she’s probably right. So after dinner Baz heads to his usual table at the library with Dev and Niall. Penny and I go to the nursery. It’s cozy there. Penny uses her wand to light a fire and we spread out on the futons and cushions and try to get serious for a couple of hours. Without the distraction of Baz sitting around smoldering and looking hot I actually get quite a lot done, which is good because I’ve loads to do. I finish an essay for Politickal Science and get halfway through a problem set for Chem. Then Penny helps me for a while with my practice for Spellkasting, which I’m always behind in. We set up the blue cups with the stars on and use _**Begone with you!** _ to vanish them and _**Come home to mama!** _ to get them to reappear. I do it three times in a row without screwing it up which is some kind of record for me. It’s great because we have a test in a few days. We’re just starting to work on _**Fill me to the brim!** _ to get the cups to fill with water when Dev, Niall and Agatha arrive in a group. Baz comes in a few minutes later, his lips dark, his face flushed. _“Good,”_ I think. “ _He’s been hunting. That’s out of the way for tonight.”_

It’s time for the meeting to begin.

It’s mostly a recap of the past few days; the Vampire Camp Fiasco, the progress of the gwythaint. We want to work out a magickal passcode to this room so we can all come and go as we please, and Penny and Baz spend a lot of time futzing with various spells at the door. When we get to the part about the Magickal Registry and my parents I start to feel bad. I hate this. I hate everybody talking about my life like it’s a fucking mystery they have to solve. Like its an episode of Sherlock. It’s _my_ life. _My_ crappy parents who didn’t care enough to give me a family, who let me grow up in all those lousy children’s homes not even knowing when my birthday was. It’s embarrassing. It makes me feel pathetic. And I just don’t know if I’m ready to think about all that, much less talk about it in a big group.

The talk is kind of swirling around me and I’m having trouble focusing. They’re all discussing the same unanswerable questions. Why would Lucy abandon her baby (a.k.a. me)? Why did the Mage hide the fact that he was my Dad? How does the Humdrum fit in with all this? None of this is telling me what I need to know, which is what the hell I’m going to do the next time the Humdrum shows up.The taste of smoke is thick in the back of my throat and I’m starting to worry that I might go off. Or cry. I look over at Baz but he’s at the chalkboard with Penny, adding notes to the _Things We Don’t Know_ column.

Agatha’s been sitting there with her nose in a book, as usual, but she shuts it suddenly and looks right at me. “Simon,” she says. “I just realized something.”

“What?” I say, meeting her gaze.

“I know your grandmother.”

“You do?” This has the attention of the others.

“Lady Salisbury. She plays bridge with my Mum. I’m sure you’ve met her. She always comes to the Christmas dos.”

I just stare at her blankly. My grandmother?

“She’s kind of roly poly and has white hair?” says Agatha unhelpfully. That describes about half the women who come to the Wellbelove’s Christmas party.

“Grandmother?” I say stupidly. The room is very quiet all of a sudden.

“If Lucy really is your mother,” she says.

“She is,” says Baz. “We saw it in the ledger. That’s a Magickal book. It can’t be falsified or tampered with. At least not easily.”

“Lady Salisbury is Lucy’s mother. My mum told me about it,” says Agatha. “So she’s your grandmother. I wonder if she knows that Lucy had a baby. No one seems to. It’s like you were this massive secret or something.”

“Yeah,” says Penny. “That’s because he was the Mage’s secret weapon.”

“Great,” I say.

“I wonder if Lady Salisbury knows what happened to Lucy,” says Penny. “I wonder if she knows where she is.”

“I wonder what she’d say if she knew Simon was her grandson,” says Agatha.

The silence hangs in the air. “I don’t want to talk about this any more,” I say, and my magic is shimmering on my skin.

The room is quiet. I sit there, thinking about all this, and the others have the consideration to let me be. A grandmother? Someone who goes to the Wellbeloves parties and plays bridge with Agatha’s mum? That is impossibly strange.

I look around the room. Penny is giving me her worried look. Baz, standing over by the chalkboard, looks focussed, alert. His iron grey eyes lock onto mine and I get the message. _I am here for you, no matter what._ Agatha looks like she might cry. Dev and Niall, are sitting quietly, respectful of the mood. I feel something loosen in my chest, some of the anger and the hurt release. They are my friends, my allies. They really are all on my side. I might have had crap parents, but I have true friends.

“Can we just…?” I say.

“Change the subject?” Baz says “Excellent idea.”

He strides across the room and for a minute I think he’s going to come over and put his arms around me, which I really wouldn’t mind right now, but instead he goes over to the little table and sits down in one of the child sized chairs. He pulls out Fiona’s weed and rolls a joint.

“Meeting adjourned,” he says in a voice that brooks no arguments. He reaches into his jacket pocket, pulls out an ordinary lighter, and lights the joint. He inhales, then gets up and hands the joint to Niall, holding the smoke. He knocks his shoulder against mine as he sits down on the futon next to me, then leans back and exhales slowly.

We pass the joint around among us, and when that’s finished Baz rolls another. I haven’t smoked weed that often and it usually doesn’t do anything for me but tonight I catch a buzz. The room seems sort of glowy and the stupid comments Dev and Niall are making suddenly seem extremely funny and clever. I feel very aware of Baz, lounging back in the futon beside me, his hair dark against his neck, his long legs crossed at the ankles.

Penny has wandered over to the window and she looks out at the moonlit snow below. She won’t smoke. I can tell she’s kind of mad at me for joining in.

“Let’s go skating,” she says.

***********

Penny and Agatha and I have been skating on this little pond ever since we discovered it in our third year, and Penny figured out the _ **I wanna be like Hans Brinker**_ charm to turn our shoes into skates. I figure I’m a pretty good skater, all things considered, but I’m nothing compared to Baz, of course. Turns out there’s an ice rink in winter at the Club and he and Dev and Niall all grew up skating since they were little kids. I try not to let it bother me. Baz is gorgeous on the ice, fast and elegant, and I get this mesmerized feeling I always get when I watch him playing any sport. Which - duh- is because I like him, but I never put this together before. I used to think it was just envy but I know better now. It’s another one of the seven deadly sins - lust. I think about the fact that we’ll be alone, later, in our room and I get this shivery wriggle in my stomach, right below my belly button.

The moon is nearly full and the ice sparkles like magick and the stars look close enough to touch. Niall charms some branches into hockey sticks and a rock into a puck and we have a game. Baz, Agatha and Dev against Niall, Penny and me. Our breath is coming out in big frosty clouds as we laugh and chase the magickal puck around on the ice, and the air smells all piney and clean. I’m still high which makes the stars seem more sparkly and the pine smell more piney. My new duffel coat and scarf are keeping me warm and I realize, with a start, that I’m having fun.

It happens so fast I hardly know what hit me. One minute I’m skating for the goal, pushing the puck before me. Probably skating faster than I should be. The next minute Dev swoops in to block me and our heads come together in a terrific clang. I’m flat on my back and I slide about 20 feet backwards from the impact. I look up and the sky is filled with twice as many stars as before.

Baz is flying across the ice from the other side of the pond, his cloak streaming out behind him, his skates flashing silver in the moonlight. He kneels on the ice beside me.

“All right?” he breathes. His face is worried, scared. He gives me a hand to pull me up and I feel the world tilt weirdly, unnaturally. I shake my head to clear it, then I put my hand to the back of it and feel the wet stickiness of blood.

I see Baz’s nostrils flare and he drops my hand and turns his head from me and covers his mouth, but not before I see the gleam of his fangs. Without another word he gets up and skates across the pond. When he gets to the edge he pauses for a moment to magic away his skates, but then he keeps on going, striding away from us across the moonlit snow.

 


	8. Concussion

**Baz**

Nurse puts 20 stitches in Simon’s head and he spends two nights in the infirmary with a concussion. Dev has three broken fingers.

I go to lessons and stay in our room and am generally miserable. And scared. I hunt when I need to. I stare at the wall. I’m not getting any work done. I can’t believe I slipped up like that. I’ve seen Simon bleed before. I know the smell of his blood. It smells distinct to me from anyone else’s. There was that time I punched him in the nose. He had blood all over his face that day. I guess that was before the change, though. But still. He cuts his face shaving sometimes, skins his knuckles practicing with that blasted sword.

I think I might just leave school. But I don’t even have a place to go.

After two days of this Penny and Agatha show up in our room.

“Simon wants to see you,” Penny says.

“He misses you,” Agatha says.

“Come on, Baz,” Penny says. “Stop being an idiot.”

It’s against my better judgement but I miss him, too. I miss him a lot. A ridiculous amount, to tell the truth. I’m yearning for him. So I let them drag me to the infirmary.

Simon’s sitting up in this metal bed, painted white, that looks like something out of the 1920s. He has a huge white bandage wrapped around his head. Ebb’s sitting in a chair beside him, holding his hand and he’s got the baby gwythaint on his lap, feeding it with a spoon. Simon gives me a wry smile when I walk in, and the gwythaint hisses at me. I almost hiss back.

But it’s all right. I can smell the blood, his blood, but it’s muffled by the bandages and it’s not fresh. I feel a tingle in my fangs but it’s nothing I can’t handle. Nothing I haven’t tamped back a million times before.

Ebb collects the gwythaint from Simon’s lap, nods to me briefly and leaves with the ungainly black bird clinging to her shoulder. I spend the night in the chair beside Simon’s bed, with my legs across his knees, his hand clasped in mine. In the morning, Nurse releases him and we go back to our room.

The minute the door closes Simon leans in to kiss me. I‘m so hungry for him, for his mouth, his touch, but I push him away, in spite of the fact that every molecule in my body is yearning towards him. He lets out a frustrated moan and tries to pull me close again, and next thing I know, we’re kind of tussling back and forth.

“Simon, no,” I insist.

“Why not?” he says, trying to kiss me again. I have to slap his mouth away.

“Because you’re still sick, you dolt! You have a concussion. You’re not supposed to exert yourself. And besides, it might not be safe. I… I can still smell the blood.”

“Oh,” he says. He seems convinced. I know he saw my fangs pop for his blood, the other night. I could see it in his eyes. He sits down on his bed, and I sit down on mine. It’s like before, before everything started between us. Like the past seven years of our lives. The two of us staring across the room, each on our own bed.

The small rectangle of bare floor between us feels like a chasm.

“Baz,” he says.

‘What?”

 “I feel fine.”

“You have a concussion.”

“I miss you.”

“Me too.”

He flops back on his bed and puts his hands behind his head and huffs out his breath. “Can’t we just….. Hold each other?”

“No.”

Silence.

“Baz?”

“What?”

“Why not?”

I look over at him, raise an eyebrow. “I don’t think we’d just be holding each other for very long. Do you?”

“No.”

More silence.

“Baz?”

“What Simon?”

“How long?”

“Crowley! I don’t know! Probably forever if we had any sense. I can’t believe I lost control like that. We should take it as a warning! What if we were kissing and you bit your lip or something? I’m not safe. I never will be. I’m an idiot for thinking I could ever have anything like this. Anything this good!” And I can’t help it, my throat is getting tight, my eyes hot. I feel utterly miserable. I don’t know how I’m going to carry on without him. I rub at the wetness that is forming in my eyes with my fist, like a little kid, before the tears can fall.

“Baz?”

“What now, Simon?”

“I’m not afraid of you.” He gets up and crosses the chasm of floor between our beds, that no man’s land of our childhood. He takes me in his arms and kisses me chastely, on the temple.

“You should be,” I say, into his collar.

“I never have been,” he says, holding me tight, his lips sliding down to brush my wet cheek. “And I never will be.” He kisses me on the mouth, gently, tenderly, his lips soft and warm against mine. He pushes the hair back from my neck and kisses the bite marks there.

“Simon, your concussion,” I moan. He feels so good.

“I’ll be good,” he says lifting his head and grinning at me. “For now.”

And it’s all right. I put my head on his shoulder and his arms are warm around me and he’s stroking my hair, and that hollow awful feeling that’s been in my chest for the past two days is gone, as every muscle in my body relaxes into him.

“Crowley,” I sigh.

“Can you still smell it?” he asks. “The blood?”

“All I smell right now is your fucking magic.” It’s true, the green wood, burny smell of him is filling my nose, my lungs, making me a little bit lightheaded.

“Play for me,” he says, into my hair.

“What are you talking about?”

“Your violin. You haven’t touched it since we’ve been back.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“I know. Play for me.”

I love my violin. It belonged to my grandfather, and it’s been cared for well over the years. The warm wood glows richly polished and unmarred. Normally I practice in one of the music rooms in the basement of the White Tower, but I’ve been too distracted since we got back from break with everything that’s been going on. Now, I tighten the bow and rosin it, while Simon watches me from my bed. I touch the bow to the strings, tune them carefully, and start to play.

I warm up with some old Suzuki tunes that I’ve known since I was little, since before my mother died, songs that are in my heart and my fingers so deeply I don’t have to think about them at all. Then I go on to a few fiddle tunes I’ve always loved, and the Bach Etude I won a contest with when I was ten. Finally, I get out my sheet music and start playing some of the pieces I’ve been working on more recently, the Kishi Bashi and a new really complex atonal piece my teacher gave me before break. Simon sits there, with his head in that huge bandage, watching me, listening to me, as the music fills the little tower room.

After I’ve played for about an hour we go to the dining hall together and get some breakfast. It’s Saturday so there’s fruit and cocoa and fresh rolls set out all morning as the students drift in and out. We end up in the library at a table with Penny and Agatha. Penny is in serious study mode and glowers at any attempt at distraction, so we all get a lot done. Which is good because I’ve a paper to write for Politickal Science and I’m way behind on my Spellkasting research for my special project with Possibelf.

It turns out to be a pretty good day.

*********  
**Baz**

In the dream I’m climbing the spiral stairwell once again, metal creaking under me, higher and higher, tighter and tighter circles and I grow smaller and smaller, impossibly small, until I’m the size of an ant. I finally get to the top and open the door and there’s an ant behind the desk. The flicker of the gas lights glimmers over her black shiny shell. She waves her antennae and hisses at me and suddenly, it’s my mother sitting there. _This is where you’ve been all this time,_ I think as she smiles at me and I reach for her outstretched hands, rough and familiar. I am so happy at the feel of them. Relief and joy at having found her at last are washing through me. Then I look up and I see that her fangs are out, and her eyes are cold, greedy. I drop her hands and start running back down the stairs, and Simon is suddenly beside me and we’re out in a big open field. He grabs my hand and we’re running for our lives, my mother close behind us with her fangs huge and gleaming. We’re running straight into the burning sun and I’m awake, sitting up in bed, shaking, with Simon’s arms around me.

“Shush, shush,” he soothes, stroking my back.

“Bad dream,” I gasp. I’m bathed in cold sweat.

“I know,” he says. “It’ll be all right. It’s only a dream.” I kind of collapse into him and he keeps stroking my back. I start to shiver. “You’re cold,” he says. “Budge over.” He gets in under the covers and pulls me close against him.

“No sex,” I say, remembering his concussion.

“Fine,” he says, yawning into the back of my neck. “No more bad dreams.”

**********

We only last like that a couple of hours. I wake up in Simon’s arms with the blue light of dawn creeping into the room. I can tell by his breathing that he’s awake and I can tell by his thigh pushing against mine that he wants me.

He sighs and shifts and pulls me closer. I feel his breath, soft and warm, on the back of my neck. His hand drifts over casually across my thigh and lightly brushes against my erection, and nothing has ever felt so good. The electric tingle is all through me and I want more. I can’t help it. Does it count if we go really slow? Does it count if we don’t acknowledge what we’re doing?

I wait with bated breath and nothing happens for what seems like forever. Is he waiting for me to make a move? I want him so much. I’m not sure what to do. Finally that hand comes sneaking back across me, like it’s an accident, the back of his hand brushing my hard cock. I feel his knuckles. And this time I take a tiny breath in, and shift, a little bit, against his warm body.

Slowly, slowly his hand moves towards me, until at last he’s making lazy soft circles on my stomach that feel amazing. I sigh and shift and move back a little further and I can feel the tip of his cock against my arse. His hand dips lower. He’s rubbing me through my pajamas, and his cock is pushing into me from behind and I’m coming into the delicious warmth of his hand through the fabric before I can even help myself.

He’s holding onto me and kissing the back of my neck and I can tell he wants more. “C’mon Baz,” he whispers. “Do me.”

“You’re not supposed to exert yourself.”

“My head feels fine,” he says. “No headache. No Dizzyness. C’mon.” He bucks his hips impatiently against me.

What can I say? I know how he feels. “Don’t blame me if you get brain damage,” I murmur, and I flip him onto his back. He’s just wearing school pajama bottoms so it’s easy to lose myself in his naked chest, kissing and sucking each nipple, burying my face in the soft curly hairs. I work my way down to his stomach and spend a lot of time on his navel, my tongue inside it and now he’s moaning, shifting his hips up toward me.

I slip his pajamas down, over the bulge of his cock and then it’s right there in front of me, thick and hard, in a nest of soft brown curls. I start kneading my hands into the backs of his thighs. I breath onto his cock, then inhale the gamey smell of him. It’s really sexy, and I feel myself getting aroused all over again even though I just came. I love that he’s hard like this. For me. That he wants me this much. His breathing is fast and desperate with want. I breath on the head one more time, then take it in my mouth, licking, sucking, experimenting. I’ve got my hands around his thighs, cradling him, pulling him towards me, He’s starting to thrust into my mouth, and I can control his movements, the way I’m holding him. I let a hand glide up towards his arse and gently, start rubbing the entrance and pushing against it , and he likes that, ”Baz,” he’s panting in a ragged voice that twists my gut. “Baz….it’s……..so……. good…. don’t… stop” and his cum is hot and smokey in my mouth.

I let my head fall onto his stomach, his soft, beautiful stomach, and my tongue is lazily exploring the soft brown hairs there, a little mole below his navel.

“Tickles,” he says, and pulls me up into a tight embrace to kiss my mouth.“You taste like me,” he says.

“Like smoke,” I say. “Your cum tastes like smoke.”

“Well, I’m a dragon.”

“Well, I’m a vampire.”

“I know,” he yawns, relaxing into me. “That’s why we fit so well. Fire and ice.”

“Mmmhmmm,” I say, melting into him in turn. “How’s your head?”

“Fine,” he says shaking it. “I think I’m better.”

“That was a lot of exertion,” I say, and then we’re both laughing and I don’t even remember falling back to sleep after that, just the two of us, lying there and giggling together and then we’re opening our eyes and it’s morning.

 


	9. Reprieve

**Simon**

The next few weeks are actually kind of quiet. Too quiet, Penny says, but I don’t mind. I know more is coming, but it’s nice to have a chance to just be a student for a little while.

Penny’s Mum is headmistress now. There was a big welcoming ceremony with Penny’s dad and all her siblings sitting in chairs on the stage in the assembly hall in the White Chapel. Miss Possibelf was up there as well, looking sad. I guess she would have had the job if it wasn’t for Mitali Bunce.

I get my stitches out and Dev gets graduated from a cast to a splint for his broken fingers. Agatha says yes to him finally so we’re all set for the Winter Ball. Dev with Agatha, Niall with Rowan, and then Penny, Baz and me, all in a group, just for the fun of it.

My funds are dangerously low and I talk to cook Pritchard and she gives me a job in the kitchens. It’s not just me, there’s lots of students who work there, serving food and doing dishes. Then Baz surprises me by coming home one evening and announcing he got a job at the Starbucks in the village by the train station. I guess I’m not the only one who’s had their allowance cut off, but he won’t talk to me about the fight with his father.

The baby gwythaint doesn’t die. He keeps getting bigger, stronger. He still gets excited when he sees me though, flaps his wings and squawks until I come over and scratch his scaly beak. Ebb is letting him out to fly and he’s getting his own food now, bringing back rats and rabbits which he tears apart with gusto in a corner of the barn. It’s disgusting to watch him, but strangely satisfying. Baz won’t go near him when he’s eating.

He needs a name but no one can agree. Ebb wants to call him Hercules for some reason, and I like Nigel. Baz keeps suggesting Evil Bird of Death.

The goats have started kidding and every time I go to the barn there’s new babies. They jump and play and then go running and buck hard at their mother’s udders. Ebb is better, back to her old self. She’s steady on her feet now, smiling at the antics of the babies.

I think a lot about everything. Lucy Salisbury. David Fucking Weir. I know what happened to him but I can’t help wondering what happened to her. Did she really abandon me? Or did something happen that kept her from me. From being my mom. Is she still alive? Is there still a chance, for her and me?

We study. We get caught up on homework. We have strategy meetings but there’s nothing new to report. The mage is evil. He’s my dad The vampires have joined him.

Nothing we don’t all ready know.

No one has any idea how to fight the Humdrum or what his next move is going to be. Our strategy sessions are increasingly turning into an opportunity for us to hang out together and smoke the rest of Fiona’s weed. I don’t really mind. It feeels good to do normal teenager stuff.

At night, in the tower, there’s Baz and me. We don’t do any more actual shagging, but we find ways to keep each other happy. In the mornings, there’s his arms around me, his mouth on mine, before we start our day.

I really, really like it. I like him. And though I know I love him now, I haven’t told him so. Not yet.

Two days before the Winter Ball all six of us take the train to London and go to the second hand shops. Baz and I are both working for our spending money, but everyone else is on budget as well.

Money doesn’t grow on trees for any of us. Even if you use that spell, _ **Money doesn’t grow on trees.** _ Which always makes me feel like a bounder. You can spend the money you pick off the trees, but it disappears as soon as you leave the shop.

When we get to Drury Lane the girls peel off right away, saying they have important business and they’ll see us later. We four boys have a pretty good time. There’s a white suit Baz makes me try on. He absolutely loves it, but I refuse to buy it. I find a black jacket and light grey trousers that don’t make me look too naff, and Niall comes up with a lavender tie that kind of pulls the whole look together. Baz looks like a rock star in a maroon velvet jacket and black velvety trousers that make his legs look really long and skinny. He makes Dev buy a blue suit to go with Agatha’s eyes and Niall is happy in a black suit that makes him look tall rather than weedy. We’re ready for the Winter Ball.

We meet up with Agatha and Penny and we all go to my friend the halal man for lamb and rice and mint tea. He seems very happy to meet my friends. He’s busy cooking and serving and learning everyone’s names, but his eyes look sad. While they’re eating, I go back behind the counter and have a few words with him.

“How is your son?” I ask and he shakes his head.

“He is in jail,” he says. “His sentence is only three months, but still, I am ashamed.”

I don’t know what to say. He shakes his head, as if he can shake away his sadness. “How is your friend?” he asks. “The one who was injured.”

“She’s much better, thanks,” I say.

“And you are happy with your handsome boyfriend?” he asks. I feel myself blushing in response. “No need to answer,” he says. “I see it in your eyes.”

“I found out who my real parents are,” I confide in him.

He looks at me sharply. “That knowledge can be both a blessing and a curse,” he answers. I feel his eyes on me, appraising. “Take care, my young friend. The world is filled with many pitfalls, both within us and without.”

**********

**Baz**

In my dream I am hunting in the silence and the dark. I smell the animals all around me. My fangs are out. I taste the blood in the air, the fresh sweet blood, alive, pumping through hearts, running through veins, feeding hungry muscle and bone. I taste life itself, the life I am always yearning for. I am cold, thirsty. Then Simon is there, in the trees ahead of me. Dirty snow on the ground, the branches bare. His curls are backlit by moonlight. And all my yearning turns to him. I want his arms around me, his kiss. The lust for blood fades, as if it never was. There is nothing but this. I reach for him, he is my heart and he moves toward me, and it is good, so good, because I know that in a moment he will hold me. Then the ground shudders and shakes. There is a dragon, blowing fire, its leathery wings beating the air, lashing its vicious spiked tail with its powerful muscles. Simon has his sword out, prepared for battle. Then the dragon turns its face to us, its red eyes incredibly sad. It breathes in, pauses for a moment, then exhales a wall of fire at us, and we burn.

***********  
**Simon**

It takes me a long time to calm Baz down, after that one.

*******  
**Baz**

The Saturday of the Winter Ball turns out a relaxed, quiet sort of day. Nobody feels very motivated to do homework. Simon and I stay mostly in our room, studying a little. I practice violin. He practices with his sword. I like to watch him do that. Simon is perpetually awkward in daily life, but when he’s working with his sword he gets this kind of grace, the muscles prominent in his thighs and shoulders, his breath coming fast. I get kind of mesmerized by it, to tell the truth.

In the afternoon I go to the woods and he comes along with me, for the hell of it. It’s a sunny day, a bit too sunny for my taste, but there’s a warm wind from the south and the woods are all melty. Puddles in the trails, big clumps of snow melting and falling off the branches of the trees. There are birds twittering about as if spring is coming. Simon sits on a rock in a sunny spot against the cave wall and studies his Greek while I hunt.

Walking back he takes my hand. “I like this,” he says.

“What, dating a vampire?”

He grins at me ”Yeah, that part’s worked out all right.” We walk on a little. “No….I mean….”

_Use your words Simon,_ I think, but I’m smart enough to bite my tongue. “Just…us…..together. not fighting…….not …..kissing, even. Just doing, you know, normal stuff.”

“Normal like hunting woodland animals and sucking their blood?”

“That’s not what I meant,” he says, eyes cast down. He drops my hand and starts walking faster down the path.

Oops.

He’s remarkably thin skinned sometimes, for all he’s the hero that’s going to save the world.

“Simon,” I say. He stops and turns to me.

“I…..like it too.”

And then we’re just kissing, out in the soft, snowy afternoon, with the sun getting low through the trees and the birds singing all around us and neither of us wants to stop.

**********

**Simon**

I take a shower, before the dance, and get out to find Baz trying to shave in front of the steamy mirror, grimacing, sticking his cheek out with his tongue to get at the creases in his face. Unlike me, Baz really needs to shave. He’s wearing those velvety trousers and nothing else, his bare chest white and lean. His eyes narrow at me in the mirror as I step out of the shower in a cloud of steam. I dry off a bit, wrap myself in a towel and then go to put my arms around him from behind, my hands on his belly, making those soft circles which always get to him. I’m sinking into him, my mouth goes to the side of his neck and I’m kissing, drinking him in. I feel his breath hitch, and my hands slide toward his crotch, toward the bulge in those velvet trousers.

“You can shag me, if you want to,” I whisper in his ear.

“Later,” he says, his voice heavy with lust. “Tonight. After the dance. If you really want to.”

“I do, Baz,” I say. “I really want to.”

“Good,” he says. “Me too.”


	10. The Winter Ball

**Baz**

We find our friends in a group in the crowded entrance hall in front of the dining room. The girls have been working together on their outfits all afternoon and they look lovely. Rowan is in a blue gown which offsets her pale skin and long dark hair. She and Niall look great together. Agatha is wearing a gossamer dress of palest pink. Dev is staring at her like she’s a vision of everything he’s ever wanted. But it’s Penny who really strikes my eye. She never bothers much about her appearance so when she takes the time it’s really noticeable. You can see how beautiful she is. Her glasses are off and her hair is falling in masses of black curls over her shoulders. She’s wearing a wine colored gown that brings out the warm creamy tones in her skin. She smiles at Simon and me, and we each take her by an arm. But then, just as we’re turning to enter the hall we hear her name ring out over the heads of the crowd. “Penny!” We all three turn back and Micah is standing on the staircase above the crowd, with a rose in his hand and a shy smile on his face.

I haven’t seen him since our fifth year. We were still kids then, really. He’s grown tall and he’s a bit gangly but he’s well turned out in a grey suit. His black curly hair is cut neat and close to his head. He’s looking at Penny like he’s never seen anything so beautiful, and Penny just lights up. She detaches herself from me and Simon, makes her way through the crowd and climbs up the stairs to him. He puts his arms around her. The rest of us have all clearly faded away.

“Surprise,” he says at last, when he lets her go.

“You came to our dance,” she says. “How did you….?”

“I flew in this afternoon.”

“You did?” she says, looking up at him, her eyes huge.

“Uh-huh,” he nods, smiling at her. “I’m just missing a few days of classes. It’s a long weekend anyway and, I just….. I wanted to see you. I…..I’m sorry about Premal.”

“Oh Micah,” she says and buries her face in his shoulder.

********

**Simon**

Penny and Baz and I were all supposed to go in a group, but that plan was obviously overturned when Micah showed up. Not that I’m mad. Penny is glowing. There’s a little bubble of happiness around her and Micah, and she looks gorgeous. Like someone took everyday Penny, my best mate, with her glasses and little girl skirts and chubby knees and spelled her beautiful. It’s a little disconcerting, to tell the truth.

The dining hall is decorated with goldy garlands and fairy lights and Professor Bunce is actually wearing a dress for the occasion. She’s standing on a little podium that has been erected and when everyone is inside, she opens the dance with a wave of her wand and a special smile at Penny and Micah. The music begins and the fairy lights start rotating. Trays of snacks start floating through the air and nudging people in the shoulder. The dance can begin.

The music is fast and loud and we all dance together in a big group. I can kind of manage that sort of dancing, just moving your body in a rhythm to the beat. Baz is next to me and knocks against my shoulder occasionally, accidentally on purpose, which sends a quiver of electricity through me each time. He looks hot as hell in his rock star outfit. When the slow songs come we stand there a bit awkwardly. I really would love to put my arms around him and just dance, but I’m too shy for that, and so is he, I think. But the problem is quickly solved when a pretty sixth year girl I know, Ariel, comes up to me, giggling a bit, and asks me to dance. Baz raises one of those eyebrows at me and gives me the slightest of nods, so I say yes. Of course I don’t know the moves and I’m treading on her toes, but she’s a good sport about it. When I look around for Baz, I see that he’s found a partner and is flying elegantly around the room with her.

There’s a steady stream of girls anxious to dance with both of us, and it’s kind of fun. I’m klutzy, but unlike when I used to dance with Agatha, nobody seems to mind. At one point Baz elbows me in the ribs, and whispers in my ear “I’ll have to give you some proper lessons when we’re alone.” Dev has a flask of some sticky sweet minty alcohol, which he keeps passing around, and I’m starting to get a little drunk. The food’s not bad, either, and everyone seems in a good mood. Everything is going really well, we’re all sitting around one of the round tables that’s been set up in the back, talking and laughing, when the music swells to a waltz. Agatha turns to Baz and offers him her hand. “Would you dance this one with me?” she asks.

I’ve never seen anything quite like Baz and Agatha on the dance floor. They’re waltzing around so gracefully and elegantly it’s like their feet aren’t even touching the floor. Agatha’s like a translucent pearl, her hair a waterfall of gold behind her, and Baz looks like something out of a film, his head high, his legs going on and on in those black velvet trousers, his feet moving flawlessly over the floor, never missing a step. Penny and Micah are out there as well, waltzing around in their bubble of happiness, and Niall and Rowan make an elegant couple. They both know how to waltz, and they’re good, but nothing compared to Baz and Agatha. I’m so fascinated I don’t even know what to think. I’m not jealous exactly. I’m mostly just sort of checking out how hot Baz is when he dances, and admiring Agatha the way you’d admire a beautiful piece of artwork or a sunset or something.

Dev and I are left alone at the table, and when I look over at him I see the stormcloud on his face. “Want to waltz?” I say. It’s a stupid joke (I probably wouldn’t have made it if I wasn’t a little drunk). He just gives me a disgusted look and gets up and walks away.

I follow him out into the yard where a bonfire has been set up with benches around. It’s too cold outside for most people in their dress up clothes so it’s mostly abandoned. He’s sitting on one of the benches with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

“Hey,” I say when I sit down next to him.

He puts his head up, takes a long pull off the flask and hands it to me.

“It’s just one dance,” I say.

“I’ll never be as good looking as him.”

I shrug. I’ve lived with the same problem for seven years. “No one will. He’s Baz. It’s kind of his defining characteristic.”

“That and being a git.”

“ _She_ asked _him_ ,” I say. We all saw it

“He didn’t have to say yes.”

“It’s just one dance.”

“He always has to be the best at everything.”

“Yup,” I say. “Classic Baz.”

“I think she really likes him,” Dev said.

“Well if she does she’s wasting her time. He’s not interested in her.”

“Why not?”

I take a pull from the flask and hand it back to him. “You know why not,” I say.

“Because he’s gay,” Dev says.

“Yeah.”

“Because he’s with you.”

“Yeah.”

He takes another drink and hands the flask back to me. “Are you two like…. shagging and everything?” he asks.

I just give him a grin. I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. If it gets much more personal I’m going to have to cut it short. But Dev just puts his head in his hands again and stares at the fire.

“How’d you ever give her up?” he asks.

“Well, actually she gave me up. She’s the one who broke it off, you know. But it was never…...right. We were never really…...happy together.”

“Because you’re gay,” he says.

I shrug. “Because we’re Agatha and Simon. She always wanted me to be something different from what I really was.”

“I would never give her up,” he says fervently. He pulls reflectively on the flask. “Doesn’t it bother you?” he asks. “Their dancing together like that. I mean…. If he’s your boyfriend now and everything.”

“I’m….not really bothered,” I say slowly. “I guess I kind of know where I stand with both of them.”

He just stares at the fire

“Look Dev,” I say. “She’s the prettiest girl at Watford and she’s a bit of a flirt. If you’re going to date her, you’ve kind of got to learn to put up with all that. It’s just background noise, really. Baz and Agatha have been flirting with each other for years. I know how you feel, it used to drive me crazy. But nothing’s going to happen. They’re just dancing. And…. and I think she likes you.”

“Do you?” he asks, suddenly hopeful. “Has she said anything?”

“No, but she agreed to go to the dance with you and that’s a really big deal. And… well, the way she smiles at you. Agatha’s not that hard to read, really. I think you’ve got a chance with her.”

He takes another pull from the flask “Really?” he says.

“Yeah, really,” I say. “Don’t get too pissed though, okay?” I take the flask from him. We sit and watch the flames. It’s pretty cold out. Then the door from the chapel opens. We can hear the music, loud and fast again, and a beam of yellow light cuts across the blue snow. Baz is standing, silhouetted against the light. He lifts his head as he sees us and comes striding over.

“There you are,” he says, sitting down next to me on the bench, close enough I can feel his warmth. “Agatha’s looking for you,” he says to Dev.

“Is she?” he says, and he can’t keep that hopeful look off his face. He rises and goes back inside. Baz and I are alone at the fire. He takes my hand and raises it to his lips. He kisses the knuckles. “Let’s get out of here,” he says.

“Where?”

“Somewhere we can dance.”

“We have been dancing.”

“I mean with each other.”

“Oh.”

“Come on,”he says, dropping my hand and rising. “I know a place. If we hurry we’ll catch the last train into London.”

********  
**Baz**

We go inside to grab our coats and let Bunce know what we’re up to. (Simon doesn’t go anywhere without letting Bunce know first. I try not to let this bother me.) When she finds out we’re leaving she pulls us into a corner of the coat room.

“Simon,” she breathes. “Do you have… condoms?” Her eyes are cast down. I’ve never seen her look embarrassed before.

Simon colors instantly, and looks down at the floor. I guess these two never talk about sex, even though they’re best friends. Too busy fighting the forces of darkness, I suppose. “No," he says. “I….don’t.”

She turns to me. “Do you?”

“Woefully underprepared there, Bunce,” I say. “It’s uncharacteristic. Doesn’t Micah have any?”

She shakes her head. “He was embarrassed to bring them through customs.”

I smirk, but she looks so pathetic, I take pity on her. “Top drawer of my dresser. Right hand side. You know how to get into our room. Don’t shag in my bed.”

She throws her arms around me and kisses my cheek. “Thanks, Baz”

“Don’t mention it,” I say, pushing her off me. I catch a whiff of her dense herbal magic, and under that, the blood. I shoot my cuffs. “Always one to help a damsel in distress. Especially with their prophylactic needs.” Simon is standing there looking like he wishes he were somewhere else. I grab him by the elbow and lead him out of the White Chapel. ”Enjoy yourself, Bunce. We’re going clubbing. Don’t wait up.”

*********  
On the train, Simon’s head drifts onto my shoulder and we doze. It’s kind of late and we’ve both been drinking that awful peppermint schnapps that Dev had. I hope he’s having a good time with Agatha.

About halfway to London Simon stirs and hassles his curls. He kind of leans away from me and looks me in the face. “How come you have condoms?” he asks sleepily.

“Disease prevention,” I say. “Obviously. How come you don’t?”

He shrugs. “I’ve never planned that far ahead.”

 _That’s typical,_ I think.

“How come we never use them?” he asks.

It’s my turn to shrug. “Neither of us has been with anyone else. I figured we don’t need them.” 

I kind of can’t believe he never thought this through. I’ve thought about it obsessively. “Didn’t you even think about it?”

“Nah,” he says. “Not really. Weren’t you embarrassed, buying them?”

“Father got them for me,” I confess.

That gets his attention. “Really?” he says, eyes wide suddenly. “Your dad?”

“I assume he was hoping I’d be using them with women, but yeah.”

“I thought you weren’t that close.”

“We’re…. close.” Just because we don’t talk about certain things doesn’t mean we’re not close.

“You should call him,” Simon says.

“No,”

“What’d you fight about, anyway?”

“You, obviously.”

“I know. But…. specifically.”

“Just….. It was bad, okay? I don’t want to talk about it. He’s never going to accept….The way I am. I’m done.”

“If I had a dad who cared enough to buy me condoms I would call him.”

“No.”

“You’re being stupid.”

I look at him.

“Think about _my_ dad,” he says, “Think about the shit life he gave me.”

He has a point.

“I know you miss your family,” he says.

That look in his eyes. Blue stone. Not going to back down. Simon. I catch a whiff of sulfur.

“The shit’s going to hit the fan.” he says. “This is just a reprieve. You have a family that loves you. You shouldn’t let some stupid fight get in the way. You should call them.” I think of father, handing me the condoms in a plain bag. He was trying the man to man thing and failing miserably at it. That’s not really his strength. ” _If you have any questions, Basilton,_ ” he’d said, obviously hoping I didn’t. We were both horribly embarrassed. But still. At least he tried.

“All my father ever gave me was a fucking magick sword and a destiny that’s probably going to get me killed,” Simon says, sadly.

“I’ll think about it,” I say. I look out the window the rest of the way to London. It’s too dark to see anything. Just the inky blackness, beyond the glass, broken up by the small lighted stations, Simon’s hand on my knee.


	11. Clubbing

**Simon**

I was afraid that a gay club would be kind of seedy but I actually like the place Baz takes me. It’s boys and girls, mostly people our age or a little older. The music is bright, half pop, half hip hop. People are mostly dancing in big groups with their friends, though when I look closer there’s plenty of boys dancing with boys and girls dancing with girls. It’s a big space, an old warehouse or something, but there’s chairs and sofas against the walls, a big glass bar in the center of the room, and neon lights glowing in different colors. The whole place seems light and airy.

“How’d you find this place?” I ask Baz. I’m kind of impressed. I had no idea anything like this existed. He just gives me that raised eyebrow mystery look he’s so fond of, grabs me by the elbow and leads me out onto the dance floor. I’m shy at first, but the music is fast and loud and we’re not touching, just kind of rocking out facing each other, which I know how to do because Penny and I used to practice this kind of dancing when we were still little kids. Just to be prepared, she used to say. It’s kind of fun. I start to relax, like maybe my head won’t just explode, out there on the dance floor. Of a gay club. With my boyfriend. Then a slow song comes on and Baz puts his an arm around my waist and grabs my hand.

“Put your other hand on my shoulder,” he says, and his eyes are on me like he’s never going to look away.

It’s nice. No one’s noticing us at all. Around us, other couples are doing the same thing, and the lights are low and blue and flickery. Baz’s arm is like a steel band around my waist, and his other hand is held up against mine. “Push against my hand,” he whispers, hoarsely. I do and feel the pressure as he pushes back. He’s guiding me around, very slowly, with little bits of pressure on my back and the palm of my hand. If I pay attention I can kind of figure out how to follow him. At least I’m not stepping on his feet. He rests his forehead against mine and closes his eyes, and we sigh into each other and let the beat take us slowly around the room.

*********  
We dance until we’re bathed in sweat and our feet are sore. When we leave the club we’re both starving. It’s too late even for my halal man, so we stop and eat at an all night cafe. By the time we get back to Paddington it’s three in the morning. The first train back is at five, so we hunker down on the floor next to the locked and shuttered Paddington Bear souvenir shop and doze together under Baz’s cloak. About 4:30 according to the big old fashioned clock on the wall, Baz gets up and stretches and heads for the men’s loo. I watch him go. He’s still in his velvet pants and Maroon jacket, and you’d never guess, looking at him, that he’d been up all night. He moves away from me, long and leggy, his black hair swinging in the back where he lets it grow out, his hips rolling slightly as he walks. I wonder if people can tell he’s gay. He never seemed particularly gay to me, before. Before he told me that he was. Before we started up together. But I’ve always been terrible at stuff like that.

I wonder if people can tell that _I’m_ gay. Which I am, now, I guess. Now that I’m in love with another boy.

I sit there, under his cloak and watch the quiet station. It’s starting to fill up, a little bit. There’s this naff guy, sitting on a bench, his legs crossed at the ankles, his face hidden behind a paper. There’s another bloke standing, leaning against the platform sign. He’s on his phone, head down, his face shadowed by a large bowler hat. Who even wears those anymore? There’s a janitor, pushing a cart with mops and brooms and things. The wheels are squeaking as he makes his way across the open space in front of the turnstiles to the trains.

The hairs suddenly prickle on the back of my neck as I notice that the janitor is wearing a black tuxedo. Something’s wrong. I feel the tingle of magic in the air. I look more closely at the naff fellow on the bench. His newspaper is upside down. The bloke in the bowler hat looks up from his phone and leers at me with yellow teeth. His lips are meaty red, his face green. Goblins!

I’m up, my sword is out. At the same moment, I glance over to the loo, where Baz is just exiting. “Baz,” I shout in warning. There’s two other goblins heading toward him from either side, looking mean, ready to jump. There’s two more, running down the escalator to the platform. Their weapons are these short, dagger like swords that don’t look sharp but they are. I know, I’ve been on the business end of them before. The goblins are all long and skinny, handsome, and dressed in black tuxedos. Goblins always get dressed up to kill.

Baz, thank Merlin, has the reflexes of a fighter. His fangs pop instantly, and his wand is out. He disables the guy on his left with “ _ **Don’t move a muscle”**_ which knocks him over, like a dead weight, in a complete body bind. His wand shoots a red flame at the goblin on his right. The goblin ducks and keeps going. The news stand behind him bursts into flames. I see Baz breathe in deep. “ _ **Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,**_ ” he shouts, and the goblin topples to the ground. Baz points his wand again and another red flame shoots out. The goblin catches instantly, shrieks and rolls, toward Baz, who jumps back to avoid catching on fire himself. There’s a loud pop and the goblin disappears in a shower of ash.

Meanwhile the naff fellow has lowered his paper and is loping toward me, blade out. I go after him with my sword and get a good jab into his leg. He’s a good fighter and he uses his blade to block me from getting in a more lethal blow. “C’mon Chosen One” he mocks me. “Don’t make me hurt you.” It’s turning into a duel which is not good as we’re badly outnumbered. I have to keep my focus broad, but this guy is after me like a fighting bantam and I can’t shake him. Baz is battling with the two blokes who came down the escalator and the guy who was pushing the janitor cart. I see another kiosk go up in flame out of the corner of my eye and hear his voice, hoarsely shouting hex after hex. “ _ **Fly away home!**_ ” I hear him yell and one of the goblins goes flying through the air and smashes into the Paddington Bear souvenir shop window with a loud crash. Shards of glass and Paddington Bears spew across the station floor.

At last I plunge my sword into the belly of my adversary. I twist it up until I feel it crunch against his backbone and he falls. I pull the blade out and I’m turning to see what’s behind me, when the bloke in the bowler hat comes running up and throws a sticky blue net over my head.

I’m trapped. The ropes are made of some kind of magical gooey, ropey stuff that clings to my arms and legs and tightens the more I move. My arms are pinned to my sides and I feel the ropes squeezing around my chest, making it hard to breath. The more I struggle the tighter the ropes seem to get. The bowler hat guy grins at me, his yellow teeth gleaming.

“Fuck You!!” I hear Baz shout, loud and desperate and I look over. Two of the goblins have him pinned to the ground. The third one has his dagger up, about to plunge. Baz is struggling to get his hands around the throat of one of the goblins but it’s useless. I don’t know what’s happened to his wand. The guy with his sword out has a wicked grin on his face. He’s going to kill him.

 “Baz, no,” I shout and my magic is bright and hot on my skin, burning away the sticky ropes and I’m next to him before I know how I got there. I don’t remember crossing the empty station to get to him. I just transported. I wipe my sword right through the arm of the guy with the dagger, and he falls, blood spurting from the stump of his arm like a fountain. I kick at one of the goblins that’s got Baz in a choke hold. Then it’s just a free-for-all, the four of us rolling on the floor, kicking and biting. There’s no room to use my sword or get in a good punch and Baz has lost his wand in the fray. It’s no good. I think we’re going to lose and then there’s a third goblin, the bowler hat guy, punching and kicking and I know we’re going to lose. He gets my arm pinned pinned behind my back. His knee is in my groin, his foul breath in my face. Baz has two guys holding him and he’s frantically twisting around, trying to get his fangs into one of them

Suddenly, we hear a shout from the top of the escalator and a spell booms out through the station. Spoken with power, irresistibly magickal. “ _ **Down came the rain and washed the spider out.”**_

The deluge is instant, and intense. It’s more like a tidal wave than a rainstorm. It’s in my face, in my eyes. I can’t breath or see. Somehow, in the chaos, the goblin is off me and someone is grabbing for my hand. I can tell it’s Baz and I grab onto it.

When we can see again, we’re soaked to the skin and water is dripping from every conceivable surface. There are huge puddles on the ground. The station is completely still. The goblins are gone. There’s a mess of broken glass and wet Paddington Bears on the ground. I look up and see my friend, the halal man, in his usual stained white apron over a grey ski jacket, leaking tufts of down. He’s got on these frayed brown gloves, cut off at the fingers and dirty trainers. He’s standing at the top of the escalator, holding a wand. He smiles at me, and in his eyes there is nothing but kindness.

“Beware, my young, friend,” he says “The streets are full of many dangers.” He turns and is gone before I can say a word.

“Wait,” I shout and I’m up in an instant after him, running up the escalator, taking the steps two at a time but when I get to the top there’s no sign of him. I stand there, staring at the street. There’s a cabby, leaning against his car, smoking. I double check to make sure he’s not a goblin (nope). Another bloke is picking up trash with a long pincer thing (also not a goblin). Otherwise the street is deserted. It’s still dark out.

Baz comes up behind me, and touches my shoulder gently. “I don’t think you’ll find him,” he says. His nose is bleeding, he’s got a long ugly scratch on the side of his face, and he looks like he’s missing a chunk of hair. He takes a finger and touches my left eye where I can feel a bruise forming. We’re both dripping water.

“Am I bleeding?” I ask.

He sniffs. “No I don’t smell anything,” he says.

“That bloke with the hat did something to my shoulder.” I say. It hurts to move it and everything feels kind of sore and stretched

We take the escalator back down to the platform. Baz’s wand is sitting in a pool of water. He picks it up and wipes it off thoughtfully. Then he goes to the spot we were lying in and collects his cloak. He hands my wet duffel coat to me without a word.

The five o’clock train to Watford pulls in and we get on board.

“What the fuck?” says Baz when we’re settled.

“It was the Mage,” I say.

“We don’t _know_ that,” he says.

“ _I_ know it.”

“How?”

“He always said they were too stupid to come in groups. I guess now he’s educating them.”

“Crowley,” says Baz.

It’s so early we’re the only ones in our car which is a good thing because I pull him towards me and kiss him and once I start I really don’t want to stop.

********

We get off the train and start walking back to school. It’s cold, and we’re still wet. As we come in view of the castle walls we see Fiona’s citroen is parked outside the boathouse door. She’s standing there, leaning on it, smoking.

“Shit,” Baz says under his breath.

“Basilton,” she says as we get nearer.

“Hello, Fiona,” he replies.

She looks over at me. “Hello, Chosen One,” she says dryly. “How come every time I see you, you look like you’ve just been in a fight?”

“Fuck you, Fiona,” I say.

She just sneers at me and turns back to Baz. “Mordelia’s been taken,” she says. “You need to come home.”

“Mordelia?” he asks, looking confused. “Taken? What in Merlin’s name does that mean?”

“Missing. Gone. Kidnapped. Presumably by the Mage, though of course there’s no proof of that. You’re wanted at home.”

“Home?” he repeats, blankly, as if she just said Mars.

“Yes, Basil, home. I was sent to fetch you.”

“By whom?”

“Merlin Baz, who cares?” Fiona snaps. “It’s a family crisis. Daphne’s beside herself, as you can imagine. Malcolm’s trying to organize a response. There’s a coven meeting tonight. You’re wanted at home.”

“Did he say?” Baz asks.

“Who?”

“Father.”

“Say what?”

"That he wanted me?”

“Yes.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“No, you little shit, now get in the car.”

********

**Baz**

Mordelia? Taken? She’s just a little kid.

“Just…...Can I have a minute?” I feel like everything is fading away from me, and I suddenly realize how exhausted I am, how much I was counting on just falling into bed with Simon.

Fiona rolls her eyes, stamps out her cigarette and gets in the car. I grab Simon by the lapels of his coat and drag him into the shadowed awning at the entrance to the boat house.

“I have to go,” I say.

“I don’t want you to,” he says, and puts his arms around me. He’s so warm. I just want to lose myself in that warmth.

“I have to.”

“I know.”

“They took Mordelia. She’s seven.” My stupid little sister. All we ever do is fight. But I feel my chest tighten when I think of her captured. Alone. At the mercy of the Mage.

Simon is trying to kiss me but I’m thinking about Mordelia and it feels like the whole world is constricting to just that thought. I feel a weird, unfamiliar ache in my teeth. Not the hunger, something different. Like a need for revenge. My own family has been attacked. I want to bite back.

“Call me,” he says, into my hair.

“Call you?”

He nods. “Penny’s phone. Can you remember the number?”

“Yeah, sure,” He tells it to me three times and makes me say it back to him.

“Don’t do anything dangerous,” he says.

“Like battling goblins?”

“Without me. Don’t do anything dangerous without me.”

“You either.”

“Okay. We were supposed to do it the other way round.“ His blue eyes look sad, childlike.

“We will,” I say stroking his cheek. “Just not right now.”

“I love you,” he says, and the magic words hang in the chilly morning air like a spell. Fortifying me. Giving me the strength to tear myself away. To do what needs to be done.

“Good. Because I love you,” I say.

Fiona honks. It’s time to go.

I kiss him one last time, walk quickly to Fiona’s car, get in and slam the door.

********

**Simon**

I watch Fiona’s citroen until I can’t see it anymore, then make my way wearily back to our room. I’m still damp, and I’m chilled to the bone. I feel like I’ve been awake for a thousand years. When I get up to our room, I find Penny and Micah twined together in my bed, fast asleep.

What a fucking night. I hang my duffle coat in the wardrobe. I strip out of my wet dress clothes, leave them on a pile in the floor, and crawl into Baz’s bed. I breathe in the smell of him. I miss him like fuck.

I fall asleep.

********

**Nicodemus**

Malcolm Grimm’s daughter is asleep in the back of the Bentley as we drive through the small quiet roads to the pink hotel by the sea. She put up quite the fight until the Mage spelled her quiet. He sits beside me in the passenger seat. He’s bored, restless, wanting to get there. Wanting to get his prize tucked away.

“We’re getting somewhere, Nico,” he says drumming his fingers on the dash.

“Yes, sir,” I reply.

“Gideon Petrokov comported himself well,” he says. It was Gideon and them that went in and did the actual snatching. Good thing the wards on that house have been loosened to admit their undead, pansy son.

“Yes sir,” I say again. I’ve found it’s best to agree with him when he’s in this mood. He usually just wants someone to listen to him.

“I wonder how it went with Yellowfang and the goblins.”

“We’ll find out soon enough, “ I say. Freddie Yellowfang, head of the goblins, with his stupid bowler hat. My main rival. “We’re almost there.”

I pull into the long drive with it’s large No Trespass sign hanging from a rusty pole. You can’t see the hotel from the road. I found this place for him. It’s one of the reasons I’m in his good graces. That and I know when to shut up and listen when he wants to talk.

I drive through the woods that surround the old hotel, then past the goblins camping on the lawn, their fires burning, throwing their tents into sharp relief. I pull up to the back entrance and the two wraiths on guard duty drift aside to let us enter. They always give me a chill, those do, when I’m near them. I take the child in my arms and carry her up to the bedroom on the third floor.

It was a children’s room once, clearly, though the floor is grimy with dust and water has seeped in and stained the flowered wallpaper. There’s a child sized rocking chair, fuzzy with dust. There’s blocks stacked in a corner, a model train, a row of dolls with ceramic faces lined up on top of the dresser. Their blank eyes stare at me as I set Mordelia Grimm on the stained mattress. I find a blanket in the closet, cover her up and lock the door.

Downstairs in the hotel lobby, the Mage is behind the counter, pouring himself a large scotch which he keeps in one of the cubbyholes they used to use for mail and such. There’s an orange flame in a glass bowl, casting it’s flickering light over the shabby open space. There were sofas in here once, for the guests to sit and watch as people came and went, but the stuffing in them was rotten and he had us drag them out and burn them.

The Mage holds his wand above his glass and three ice cubes form, one after another, and drop into the glass with a tiny splash. He stirs the drink with his wand, takes a sip and leans against the counter with a sigh. “Want one?” he offers.

I nod, and accept the glass he fixes for me, but I only take a few sips. He likes it when I drink with him. Man to man, like. I think, sometimes that he’s really very lonely. But I’m only drinking to keep him company. I need to keep my wits about me, around him. I have my Blue Sapphire back in my room, for later.

David Weir. He was older than us in school and most people viewed him as a little cracked. He was always odd. Skinny. Awkward. Intense. He’d get going and he couldn’t shut up. Ebb looked up to him. Him and his girlfriend Lucy. She was fit. But Fi and I always kept our distance from them.

“D’you think this’ll work?” he asks now.

“It’ll work,” I tell him. I’m banking on the Chosen One’s not being able to resist the pull, the need to rescue this child, his boyfriend’s little sister. I’ve been watching him for a long time. I think I’ve got his number. Brave. Stupid. Always the hero. He’ll be here. “Give him three days,” I say. “Four at most.”

“Without Simon’s power, the rest falls apart,” the Mage says. “We’ve got to have that power. We won’t succeed without it.”

“Give them a day or two to stew, have their little Coven meetings, get worked up,” I say, spitting on the floor. I hate that damn Coven. “Then I’ll let him know where she is. He’ll be here.”

“Unless Yellowfang succeeds in his mission tonight.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I suppose.” If he manages to deliver Snow tonight, then me and my plot are on the outs. We’ll see. Goblins aren’t that bright.

“I should have kept him closer to me!” he says now, hitting the counter. “I shouldn’t have let him get away. Under the influence of that Pitch brat!”

“Don’t take on so,” I say, trying to soothe him. He often says things like this in a certain mood. “He’s a sneaky little thug,” I say now. “Can’t really trust him, like. No guarantees with one like him.”

“I thought it would be best to keep him away from magic. Keep him pure. I always thought he’d join with me when the time came.” He stares glumly into his drink. “What time is it?”

I pull a phone out of my pocket. It’s the Mage’s. He hates technology. I’m in charge of his phone, now. (Not bloody Freddie Yellowfang). I glance at the screen.

“Half four, “ I say.

He puts the glass to his lips and swallows. The old hotel is quiet around us. The sea is high and I can hear the waves, faintly crashing against the rocks below us.

The phone pings, startling us both. The words sit on the screen in a little blue bubble. “ _Chosen One got away. Interference from an unknown source. 3 snuffed.”_

I hand it to the Mage who reads the message in silence. I take another sip of my drink. Don’t let a muscle move on my face. Inside though, I’m grinning from ear to ear.

My time is coming. My star is on the rise.

_End of Part 2_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of Watford Tales Part 2. The story is continued in Watford Tales Part 3 http://archiveofourown.org/works/9685445/chapters/21865667. Thanks so much for reading and don't forget to comment! PB


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